Approximately a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
