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Just over a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the season to be held in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.

“You might get five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Building an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.

“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Push

In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now at more than 400 and intended to attain the objective of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.

Apollo Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, instead of 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 focusing on various components of the project at a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta