A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
