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Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately granted the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.

“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the mission of launching the iconic American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being handled.

“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.

Apollo Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta