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Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the championship to be staged in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

With every day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in Melbourne and targets are being set realistically.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Effort

In August they contracted Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their vast knowledge in competing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas echoed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now up to over 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, contrary to the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling different aspects of the project at a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “So we empower people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is so much cleaner and quicker.”

The Future

The efficacy of this agile approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta