Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity 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 passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
