Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers 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 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
