Approximately twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia 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 aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
