Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
