Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, 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 comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
