A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
