🔗 Share this article

Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”

With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume 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 accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.

Apollo Model

“We've drawn heavily from 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. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta