Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
