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Approximately one year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the squad from nothing has entailed a intense pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with approximately three months to go before they hit the circuit for the maiden outing 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 cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the experience.

“You might get five minutes looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, how impressive what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry supported by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”

With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Australia and expectations are being handled.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we turn up and we operate well. We want to show that we’re a proper team doing the proper actions on the race track. Once we prove that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In August they recruited Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for 2026, a pair remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “There’s going to be a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and taste victory.”

To that end recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now at over 400 and scheduled to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of completing an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.

Apollo Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission across a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is far more efficient and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this nimble approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta