A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the mood of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project across a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The efficacy of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta
