Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
