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Approximately twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the possibility to transform team culture.”

With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta