Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
