Approximately a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track 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 sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
