Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
