Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
