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Just over one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has required a hectic work rate that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 arrives on Las Vegas this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Australia

At the final race of the season to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in early 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart from that point and has a wry smile when thinking about the ride.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Establishing an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he felt the team had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So we show up and we function efficiently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Drive

In August they recruited Sergio Perez and Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and intended to hit the objective of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the process of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, different from the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” said Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all tackling various components of the mission in a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader talks to a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this nimble approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta