Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first 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 aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
