Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
