A little more than a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
