Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
