Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.
“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”
With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young American Colton Herta
