Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
