A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
