Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.
“There might be five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to transform organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses minds are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at more than 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
