A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
