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Just over one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally awarded the green light as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”

With every day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and goals are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester referred to.

Space Mission Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” said the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the project at a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta