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Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.

“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Push

In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the mission across a different facilities.

“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”

The Future

The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta