A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when considering the ride.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
