A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
