🔗 Share this article

A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit 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 endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.

“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”

With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.

NASA Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”

The Future

The success of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta