A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One 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 rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
