A little more than twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
