Approximately one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s latest participant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
