Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”
With each day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all working on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
