Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
