Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
