A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale 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 Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the mission at a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
