A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
