A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
