Just over a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain 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 stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize 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 implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
