🔗 Share this article

A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”

With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Push

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.

Apollo Model

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta