Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage 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 intended to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
