A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
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 assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
