Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick 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. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
