Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than 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 tackling various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
