Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time 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 sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
