A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
