A little more than one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
