Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when considering the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
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 recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
