A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
