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A little more than twelve months previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has entailed a hectic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.

“You can have five minutes looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO had success at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team supported by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you won't have the chance to transform team culture.”

With each passing day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that any new team 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 stated recently and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Push

In the summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a pair distinguished for their priceless expertise in operating at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. I believe given this organization, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with staff now at over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the new engine, set for 2029 – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the direction in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a flat management structure similar to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the mission in a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they report it to their supervisor, that manager communicates with a manager in another department, it travels back down, it’s super slow,” says Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

The Future

The efficacy of this nimble methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta