Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
