Approximately twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has required a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the campaign to be held in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.
The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.
“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”
With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”
Racing Talent and Hiring Drive
In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this group, 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 recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to attain the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Space Mission Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
