Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
