Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 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 launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
