Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
