Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, 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 focusing on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
