A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
