Just over a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
