A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the final race of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.
The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent 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 enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Task
Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”
Racing Talent and Team Building Push
In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Model
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
