Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
