A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
