Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.
The Race Against Time to Melbourne
At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.
The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when considering the journey.
“You might get a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”
A One-of-a-Kind Task
The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.
“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”
With each day that goes by focus are more focused on the looming moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.
“It's reasonable to expect 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,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.
“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”
Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort
In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of combative optimism.
“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”
To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.
NASA Blueprint
“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”
So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on various components of the program across a multiple sites.
“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes the CTO. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”
Upcoming Challenges
The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young American Colton Herta
