A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held 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 come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
