The Cadillac F1 team Utilizes Apollo Program Approach to Assemble Team from the Ground Up for Melbourne Grand Prix.

Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.

“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”

With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Push

In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.

Apollo Model

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a different facilities.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

The Future

The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta