Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment 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 says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
