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A little more than one year ago at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was formed, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to change organizational mindset.”

With each day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team 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 commented recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push

In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching over 400 and intended to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.

Space Mission Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated the team principal shortly before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how tough it is. The deadlines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program at a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is much smoother and quicker.”

The Future

The success of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta