Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when considering the experience.
“There might be five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with employees now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta
