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Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.

“You might get five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort

In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”

The Future

The success of this agile methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta