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A little more than a full year in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entrant for 2026. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the season to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in early 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core from that point and has a wry smile when considering the experience.

“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

A Unique Opportunity

The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a factory team backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Establishing an grand prix team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”

With each day that goes by focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.

“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester shared this view he felt the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Push

In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the objective of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

Apollo Model

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of specialist groups all tackling various components of the mission at a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that manager consults a manager at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes the CTO. “We give authority to team members to take charge. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this agile strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount at stake for the sport, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta