Approximately a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that elapses focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.
“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
