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Just over twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from scratch has entailed a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Australia

At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the journey.

“There might be a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“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,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive

In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.

NASA Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of project teams all working on distinct elements of the mission in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the young American Colton Herta