A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
