Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
