Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the goal of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
