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A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the season finale of the season to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the experience.

“You might get a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of finishing an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to build the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.

Apollo Model

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal just before the British GP in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, 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 Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the program across a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that leader communicates with a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this agile approach will be proven in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta