Just over one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.
The Countdown to Australia
At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.
“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With every day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive
In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
Apollo Model
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission at a different facilities.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
The Future
The effectiveness of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta
