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Approximately one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the season to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent operation in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a knowing grin when considering the journey.

“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive

In the summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.

NASA Model

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that leader talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta