Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
