Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
