A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“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 feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
