Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
