Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
