A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
