Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
