Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
