Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne 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 enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
