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Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the squad from scratch has involved a frenetic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending endeavor, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the team 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 might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, there is still a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”

With each passing day that passes thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and expectations are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive

In the summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Bottas expressed the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this setup, with this group, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to reach the target of six hundred quickly. Complementing their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the trend in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.

Space Mission Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

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 project teams all focusing on various components of the mission in a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this agile strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta