Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
