Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Australia
At the last event of the championship to be held in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.
“Creating an Formula One 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 possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”
To that end hiring has been in full swing, with employees now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Space Mission Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
