Approximately twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a wry smile when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.
NASA Model
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is far more efficient and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
