Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
