Approximately a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the program across a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
