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Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from scratch has required a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent operation in March 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the experience.

“You might get a short period thinking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, there is still a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Chester had success at the Renault team in Alonso's title-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender doing the proper actions on the track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching in excess of 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 rapidly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the midst of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred to.

Space Mission Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the program in a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”

The Future

The efficacy of this nimble strategy will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta