Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the campaign to be held in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.
“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.
“Building an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change organizational mindset.”
With each day that passes minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.
“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of combative optimism.
“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now up to over 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Inspiration
“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission across a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from management approval for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”
The Future
The success of this agile approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta
