Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the ride.
“You might get a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred quickly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission at a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and quicker.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
