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Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the official approval as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic operation in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.

“There might be a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.

“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change team culture.”

With every day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive

In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver reflected the sentiment of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling different aspects of the program at a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta