Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
