A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
