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A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as F1's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“You might get five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show improvement after that.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Effort

In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this flexible approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta