Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. 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 decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
