A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
