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A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last given the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the journey.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Push

In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching more than 400 and planned to attain the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

NASA Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is so much cleaner and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta