A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, 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 flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
