Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
