Approximately twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as F1's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing 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 task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”
To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
