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Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Australia

At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Creating an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the possibility to alter cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.

“One must presume 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 this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Effort

In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the process of building an HQ at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission at a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta