Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
