Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected 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 challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
