Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
