Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, 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 enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
