Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
