Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne 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 simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task 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 stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the new 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, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
