A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, 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 possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at over 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
