Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” 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 aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, 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 adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
