Just over a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team 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 show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
