Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
