Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to alter team culture.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Push
In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the goal of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
