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A little more than twelve months previously at the Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally awarded the official approval as F1's latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from scratch has involved a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the season to be held in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its center ever since and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.

“You might get five minutes looking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we’ve done in less than three years,’” he says. “Then the next minute you think: ‘Well, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

The CTO enjoyed success at Renault in Alonso's title-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that elapses thoughts are more focused on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and targets are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” Chester explains. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we will focus on improvement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In August they signed Sergio Perez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a duo distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas reflected the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it will likely be most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in full swing, with staff now up to more than 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 quickly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of completing an headquarters at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for 2029 – for now they will use Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a intricate structure, different from the movement in the sport for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which Chester referred to.

NASA Inspiration

“It's closely based on the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a decentralized management comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling different aspects of the program in a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a procedure where someone has a problem and they report it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor somewhere else, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the emerging American Colton Herta