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Just over one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.

“You can have a brief moment thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With each day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression after that.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort

In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the mood of determined optimism.

“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, different from the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding management approval for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta