A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being managed.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta
