A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.
“There might be a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.
Space Mission Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
