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Approximately one year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last given the green light as F1's newest entry for 2026. Constructing the organization from the ground up has involved a frenetic operating tempo that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the experience.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, there is still a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Task

Chester had success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team supported by the parent company, General Motors, into Formula One.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the opportunity to alter cultural approach.”

With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.

“One must presume that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team doing the correct procedures on the race track. When we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect almost certainly a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to build the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for greater centralisation, and has led to the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Well, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have adopted, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the project in a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to take charge. Eliminating management approval for everything is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount at stake for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta