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Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for 2026. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be held in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to alter organizational mindset.”

With each day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort

In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the center to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.

Apollo Model

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta