Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, different from the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a multiple sites.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
