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Approximately one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the go-ahead as F1's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has required a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As Formula One converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and gets a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Task

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac marque, a works entry supported by the owner, GM, into F1.

“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity 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 elapses focus are more focused on the impending moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being set realistically.

“One must presume that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the organization had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the circuit. When we prove that we’re really credible, then we want to show forward movement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Push

In late summer they recruited Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I believe with this structure, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 quickly. Alongside their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, contrary to the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.

Space Mission Inspiration

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we recognize how challenging it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their team leader, that leader consults a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says the CTO. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this nimble approach will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta