Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, 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 enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
