A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be tested 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 development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
