Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as F1's latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being handled.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Push
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
