Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a supervisor somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
