Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a wry smile when thinking about the experience.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”
With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission at a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta
