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Approximately a full year previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the green light as F1's latest participant for 2026. Establishing the team from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the season finale of the season to be held in the United States, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the journey.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “Then the next minute you consider: ‘Well, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning years of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”

With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the team had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the race track. When we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair remarkable for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this group, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to attain the goal of 600 members swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.

Apollo Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. 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 non-hierarchical approach similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the program at a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains the CTO. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Avoiding hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta