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Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from the ground up has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing 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 never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the experience.

“You might get a short period reflecting at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the race track. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push

In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”

To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of six hundred quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the new engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.

Apollo Model

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on various components of the mission at a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta