Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
