A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
