A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
