Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
