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Just over a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally granted the go-ahead as F1's most recent entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Australia

At the last event of the season to be hosted in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.

“There might be a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in less than three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”

With each day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up 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 our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Effort

In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their priceless expertise in operating at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and achieve good results.”

To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – until then they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester alluded.

Space Mission Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the program in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta