A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Push
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to 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 program in a multiple sites.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
