A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
