Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
