Approximately a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural 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 monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Challenge
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the team had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, 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’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
