Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
