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Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the America, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.

“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Task

Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being handled.

“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he believed the team had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the right things on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive

In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this structure, with this group, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, different from the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.

Apollo Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling distinct elements of the project at a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta