Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
