Cadillac Adopts Apollo Program Playbook to Assemble Squad from the Ground Up for Australian Startline.

Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the official approval as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.

“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Nick Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive

In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.

Apollo Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging 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 implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta