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Just over twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the journey.

“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that passes minds are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being set realistically.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push

In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.

Apollo Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the project across a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta