Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
