Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain 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 with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, 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 different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
