Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
