Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
