Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility 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 Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
