Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
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 inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still 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 title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the process of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
