Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.
The Tight Timeline to Melbourne
At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.
The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.
“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”
A Unique Opportunity
The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.
“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter team culture.”
With every day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being managed.
“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.
“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression after that.”
Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort
In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.
“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”
To that end recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.
Apollo Blueprint
“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”
So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on various components of the program in a variety of locations.
“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”
What Lies Ahead
The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta
