A little more than a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming decisive point in Australia and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive
In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
