Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
