Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
