A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building 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 center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
