🔗 Share this article

A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when considering the journey.

“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Task

Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”

With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Drive

In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.

Apollo Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the mission across a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta