A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted 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 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
