A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
