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Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from scratch has required a frenetic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware time is getting tight.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the experience.

“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change team culture.”

With every day that passes focus are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Effort

In late summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with these individuals, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 rapidly. Complementing their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to manufacture the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the trend in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Model

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on various components of the mission in a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be proven in the pressure of racing next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young American Colton Herta