Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
