A little more than one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
