A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.
The Countdown to Melbourne
At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be adequate time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.
“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
An Unprecedented Challenge
Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”
With each passing day that elapses focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.
“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”
Pilot Selection and Team Building Push
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.
“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably 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 setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to hit the target of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.
Apollo Blueprint
“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on various components of the program at a different facilities.
“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”
The Future
The success of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta
