A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
