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A little more than one year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the official approval as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.

“There might be five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

The CTO had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Building an F1 team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to alter team culture.”

With each passing day that passes thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and targets are being handled.

“You have to assume that any incoming team coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. After we prove that we’re really credible, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Drive

In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we can't manage to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the squad are in the midst of building an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program in a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta