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A little more than a full year previously at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent participant for 2026. Establishing the organization from scratch has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the US, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a sisyphean endeavor, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was formed, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center from that point and has a amused expression when thinking about the experience.

“You can have a short period looking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” he says. “But then the next minute you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

An Unprecedented Opportunity

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical direction at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but nothing has truly matched the task of launching the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Establishing an grand prix team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to alter organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that passes minds are more focused on the approaching critical moment in Australia and targets are being managed.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Graeme Lowdon noted earlier this year and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we function efficiently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation performing the right things on the track. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Push

In August they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We face a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we aren't joining to stay at the back. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are building the center to manufacture the power unit, set for the 2029 season – until then they will operate with power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.

NASA Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” stated Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. OK, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it can seem that way.”

So they have implemented, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

The Future

The efficacy of this agile approach will be tested in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta