Just over twelve months previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Tight Timeline to Australia
At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”
An Unprecedented Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into F1.
“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”
With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in 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 earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”
Pilot Selection and Recruitment Effort
In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”
To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and planned to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.
NASA Blueprint
“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”
So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a variety of locations.
“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”
What Lies Ahead
The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
