Approximately twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive
In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.
NASA Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the project in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
