Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
