Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
