Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform team culture.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
