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A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has involved a frenetic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac are aware time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will not be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when considering the experience.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change cultural approach.”

With every day that elapses focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport 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 Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive

In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the mood of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.

Apollo Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission across a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their team leader, that leader consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta