Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
