Just over twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
