Just over a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest entry for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
