Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating 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 existing team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
