🔗 Share this article

Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne 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 conscious there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to change team culture.”

With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Push

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 quickly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all focusing on various components of the mission at a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta