A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume 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,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
