Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
