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Just over twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the official approval as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has involved a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the final race of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when considering the journey.

“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform team culture.”

With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“One must presume that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression after that.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In late summer they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the movement in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred to.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the project in a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta