Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
