Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect 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 achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt 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. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
