Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, 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 alter team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
