Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe 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 realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta