Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
