A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume 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 feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
