A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Challenge
The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.
“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to transform organizational mindset.”
With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.
“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad 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 arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort
In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of combative optimism.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.
NASA Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, instead of 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 working on different aspects of the project in a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a manager in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and more rapid.”
Upcoming Challenges
The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
