A little more than one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”
With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Model
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
