Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, 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 technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
