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Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Australia

At the last event of the season to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Creating an Formula One team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that passes focus are more focused on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.

“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So that we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive

In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this setup, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with staff now reaching over 400 and planned to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in F1 for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.

NASA Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how tough it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader talks to a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta