Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from scratch has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
