Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
