Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP 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 simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
