Twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One\u2019s newest entry for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.<\/p>\n
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United Statess, with just over 100 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 sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.<\/p>\n
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can have five minutes looking back at what you\u2019ve done and go: \u2018Wow, isn\u2019t this fantastic what we\u2019ve done in less than three years,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cAnd then the next minute you think: \u2018Yeah, we\u2019ve still got quite a lot to do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso\u2019s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.<\/p>\n
\u201cBuilding an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?\u201d he says. \u201cIt is like nothing else. In an established team you don\u2019t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sergio P\u00e9rez is one of the big-name drivers who will be racing for Cadillac in 2026. Photograph: Federico Basile\/IPA Sport\/ipa-agency.net\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n
With every day that passes minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed. \u201cYou have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,\u201d Lowdon noted this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing we want to show is that we should be there,\u201d he says. \u201cSo that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we\u2019re a proper team doing the right things on the track. Once we\u2019ve shown we\u2019re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.\u201d<\/p>\n
In August they signed Sergio P\u00e9rez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport\u2019s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism. \u201cOf course, we\u2019re realistic,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it\u2019s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we\u2019re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there\u2019s no reason why we shouldn\u2019t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.\u201d<\/p>\n
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 \u2013 until then they will run Ferrari power units \u2013 and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s highly modelled on the Apollo project,\u201d said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. \u201cWe\u2019re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they\u2019re super, super, super short. OK, we\u2019re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa\u2019s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Graeme Lowdon, the Cadillac team principal, described his approach to building a new F1 team as being \u2018highly modelled on the Apollo project\u2019. Photograph: Every Second Media\/Alamy<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it\u2019s super slow,\u201d says Chester. \u201cSo we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta, winner of multiple IndyCar races, with a view to him earning a seat and he will compete in F2 next season. Vegas is one of three races in the US where the sport has recently agreed a deal with Apple for the TV rights, but a successful Cadillac with potentially an American driver would probably offer exponential growth to the sport\u2019s already burgeoning popularity here.<\/p>\n Quick GuideToto Wolff sells part of Mercedes stake for \u00a3230mShow<\/p>\n Mercedes boss Toto Wolff has sold his 15 per cent stake in the Formula One team to American billionaire George Krutz. Wolff, who owns one third of Mercedes, will remain as CEO and team principal, and is in Las Vegas for this weekend’s race.<\/p>\n The 53-year-old Austrian is set to earn close to \u00a3230million from the sale in a deal which values Mercedes at \u00a34.57bn – a record for an F1 team.<\/p>\n Krutz, the 55-year-old CEO and founder of cybersecurity company Crowdstrike – which currently sponsors Mercedes – becomes a co-owner of the team through his acquisition of Wolff’s minority interest making his share five per cent.<\/p>\n Kurtz also joins the team’s strategic steering committee alongside Mercedes group chairman Olla Kallenius and Ineos chief Sir Jim Ratcliffe.<\/p>\n Wolff, who oversaw six of Lewis Hamilton’s record-equalling seven world championships said: “George’s background is unusual in its breadth: he’s a racer, a loyal sporting ambassador for Mercedes-AMG, and an exceptional entrepreneur.<\/p>\n “He understands both the demands of racing and the realities of building and scaling technology businesses. That combination brings specific insight that is increasingly relevant to the future of Formula One.”<\/p>\n Mercedes won eight consecutive constructors’ world championships between 2014 and 2021. They are second in the standings with three rounds remaining. George Russell has won two races so far this year. PA Media<\/p>\n Thank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n For the moment simply living up to Nasa\u2019s \u201cFailure is not an option\u201d adage may be enough for a startup team come 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cThe people who\u2019ve joined really want the challenge of a new team and doing the first car for a new team,\u201d says Chester. \u201cThe level of enthusiasm, excitement, collaboration is brilliant. There are a lot of smiling faces around the factory.<\/p>\n \u201cNo doubt there\u2019s a few little wrinkles where people are feeling a bit tired on occasion but they\u2019re enjoying what they\u2019re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-298310","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-formula-1","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-f1","11":"tag-formula-1","12":"tag-formula1","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=298310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}