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Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport converges on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.

“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you think: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.

“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”

With each passing day that elapses minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the race track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort

In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem remarkable for their vast knowledge in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the facility to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable people to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta