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Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the last event of the season to be staged in the US, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in under three years,’” Chester states. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, there is still quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has quite compared with the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”

With every day that passes minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any incoming team entering the sport is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we show up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Effort

In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with employees now reaching more than 400 and intended to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the squad are in the process of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.

Space Mission Inspiration

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on different aspects of the program at a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they report it to their supervisor, that leader communicates with a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is so much cleaner and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this nimble approach will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta