Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined 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 heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the ride.
“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
