Just over twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around 100 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 sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
