Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the team from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“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 achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
