A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
