Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
