A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
