Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta
