Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
