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A little more than a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the go-ahead as F1's latest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over 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 sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.

“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the possibility to alter team culture.”

With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and goals are being handled.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Push

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the mood of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred rapidly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.

NASA Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of project teams all tackling various components of the project across a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta