A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
