Approximately twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
