Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build 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 operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
