Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
