Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
