A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this race 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 just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain 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 with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
