Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
