Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
