Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
