Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation 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 core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition 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 Californian Colton Herta
