Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
