A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
