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Just over one year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately awarded the green light as Formula One’s newest participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the squad from scratch has entailed a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac are aware the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental challenge, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” Chester states. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you don’t get the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”

With each day that elapses focus are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in Australia and expectations are being handled.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the track. Once we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Drive

In late summer they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with personnel now reaching over 400 and intended to reach the objective of 600 quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – for now they will run Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organization, different from the direction in F1 for greater centralisation, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester referred.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo program,” remarked the team principal shortly before the British GP in July. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

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

“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Eliminating managerial sign-off for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”

The Future

The success of this flexible methodology will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta