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Approximately a full year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for 2026. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team know time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing 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 aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic team in early 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Well, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”

With each day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.

“One must presume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation doing the right things on the race track. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on improvement after that.”

Racing Talent and Team Building Effort

In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the mood of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this setup, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organisation, different from the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.

Apollo Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of specialist groups all working on various components of the program in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a process where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that manager talks to a leader at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “We give authority to people to handle things directly. Eliminating hierarchical consent for all decisions is far more efficient and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta