Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
