Approximately one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, 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 journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
