A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “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. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
