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Approximately a full year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has required a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a knowing grin when thinking about the experience.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With each passing day that passes focus are sharper on the impending critical moment in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort

In late summer they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these personnel, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to attain the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred.

Apollo Model

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta