The Cadillac F1 team Employs Apollo Program Playbook to Construct Squad from the Ground Up for Melbourne Race Debut.

Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team 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 from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.

“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive

In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.

Apollo Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the project at a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta