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Approximately twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has required a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.

“There might be a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being handled.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive

In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching 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 midst of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the power unit, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

Apollo Model

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we know how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, 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 working on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”

The Future

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta