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Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a amused expression when considering the journey.

“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. 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 flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program across a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta