Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.
“You might get a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to alter cultural approach.”
With every day that goes by minds are sharper on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”
Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort
In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these people, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
NASA Inspiration
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”
So they have implemented, rather than 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 various components of the project in a different facilities.
“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”
What Lies Ahead
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
