Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season 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, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress 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, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
