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Approximately one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Australia

At the final race of the campaign to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.

“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that passes minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Effort

In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organisation, at odds with the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.

Apollo Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that manager consults a leader in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Avoiding management approval for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta