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Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the last event of the season to be held in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed operation in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and has a wry smile when considering the journey.

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

An Unprecedented Opportunity

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the chance to alter team culture.”

With every day that elapses thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he thought the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team performing the right things on the circuit. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Push

In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their priceless expertise in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the power unit, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.

Space Mission Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the mission across a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a leader at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this agile methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta