Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the season to be staged in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the experience.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform organizational mindset.”
With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager talks to a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
