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A little more than twelve months in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from the ground up has required a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent project in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its center since then and has a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Incredible, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the very next instant you think: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Task

The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.

“Establishing an Formula One team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to transform team culture.”

With every day that goes by thoughts are sharper on the looming critical moment in Melbourne and targets are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon stated earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender performing the proper actions on the track. After we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort

In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the front in two top-tier teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and we expect almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with employees now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to attain the target of 600 members quickly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to produce the power unit, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo project,” stated Graeme Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on different aspects of the mission in a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a protocol where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this agile methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta