Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
