A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
