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Just over a full year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entry for 2026. Establishing the organization from the ground up has required a intense 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, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter organizational mindset.”

With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “In order that we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.

Apollo Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that leader communicates with a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this flexible approach will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta