Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
