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Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's latest entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from scratch has involved a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One converges on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when thinking about the journey.

“There might be a brief moment thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in under three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Nick Chester had success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of introducing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming moment of truth in Australia and targets are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push

In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and taste victory.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at over 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at Silverstone, the organization are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which the CTO referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the project in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this agile approach will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta