A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team 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 quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
