A little more than a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from scratch has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
