Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
