Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the season to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume 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 feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face 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 stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
