Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
