A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
