Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
