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Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.

“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. When we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Push

In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.

Apollo Blueprint

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all working on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”

The Future

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta