A little more than twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building 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 produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
