Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from nothing has required a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
