Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
