Just over one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
