Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit 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 challenge, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating 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 well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and intended to hit the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
