A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
