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Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with approximately a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.

“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to change team culture.”

With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Push

In the summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.

NASA Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the mission across a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”

The Future

The success of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta