Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
