Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
