A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
