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Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.

“You can have five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Nick Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Establishing an grand prix 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 rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.

“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,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive

In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of six hundred rapidly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta