Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural 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 not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while 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 deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
