Approximately twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
