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Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the experience.

“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you realize: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the possibility to alter cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by thoughts are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive

In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To that end hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an HQ at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and faster.”

The Future

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta