A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with just over a hundred 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 sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
