Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
