Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when considering the ride.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “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 remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
