Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
