Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
