Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
