Approximately a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the green light as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
