Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing 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 Formula One.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
