Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately a hundred 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 sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Model
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
