Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
