Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
