Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
