Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, 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 adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
