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A little more than a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last granted the green light as Formula One’s latest entrant for 2026. Establishing the organization from nothing has required a frenetic operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo moon landing. As the sport arrives on Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Australia

At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the America, with just over 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and gets a knowing grin when considering the ride.

“You might get a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Wow, how impressive what the team has created in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we still have a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of 2005/2006 and was in command of technical direction at the recently formed Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of bringing the iconic American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.

“Creating an grand prix team from the ground up, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the chance to change team culture.”

With every day that elapses focus are sharper on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester shared this view he believed the team had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the right things on the track. After we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show forward movement subsequently.”

Racing Talent and Hiring Drive

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with staff now at in excess of 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. In addition to their existing facility at the UK base, the team are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the facility to build the 2029 engine, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester alluded.

Space Mission Inspiration

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the program across a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader communicates with a leader somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to take charge. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta