Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
