A little more than a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware 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 a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta