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A little more than twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be staged in the United States, with approximately a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a wry smile when considering the ride.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push

In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.

Apollo Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a leader in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven 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 development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta