A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO 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 then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
