Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“One must presume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
NASA Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the program across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
