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A little more than one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from scratch has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the season to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart from that point and gets a amused expression when considering the ride.

“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and think: ‘Amazing, how impressive what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

Nick Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has quite compared with the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”

With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.

“One must presume that any new team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO shared this view he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas echoed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. In my view given this organization, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now reaching over 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project at a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for everything is much smoother and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta