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Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Australia

At the final race of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed team in early 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.

“You can have five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Establishing an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “There's nothing comparable. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to transform team culture.”

With every day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” Chester explains. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Push

In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to hit the target of six hundred swiftly. In addition to their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in F1 for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” said the team principal ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all focusing on various components of the program at a different facilities.

“When you must follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”

The Future

The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta