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Just over twelve months ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.

“There might be a short period thinking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the following moment you consider: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the corporate entity, GM, into F1.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change team culture.”

With each day that passes focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the correct procedures on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort

In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in top gear, with personnel now up to more than 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the team are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to produce the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO alluded.

Apollo Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission across a different facilities.

“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Eliminating managerial sign-off for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this nimble methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young American Colton Herta