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Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.

“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.

“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the new engine, set for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.

NASA Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta