Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
