Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic 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 since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
