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Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.

“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being handled.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. When we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push

In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the midst of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.

Apollo Model

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta