Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“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 achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
