🔗 Share this article

A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.

“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”

With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.

Apollo Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

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 assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program in a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta