Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team 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 performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
