A little more than a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit 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 sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
