Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural 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 challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
