Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
