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Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when considering the journey.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into Formula One.

“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

With every day that passes thoughts are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in Australia and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Push

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission across a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”

The Future

The efficacy of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta