Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”
A Unique Task
Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program in a different facilities.
“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta
