Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a wry smile when considering the experience.
“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a leader in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
