A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
