A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first 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 monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
