Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
