A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
