Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
