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A little more than one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for 2026. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a intense pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the United States, with just over three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent team in March 2023 not long after it was established, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a knowing grin when considering the ride.

“You can have five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he says. “But then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

The CTO had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes electric racing team, but nothing has been quite like the challenge of launching the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry supported by the parent company, GM, into F1.

“Building an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an established team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

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

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Chester echoed this he thought the organization had a point to prove as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Push

In late summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and it’s going to be probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these personnel, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and intended to hit the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of finishing an headquarters at the Fishers location in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organisation, contrary to the direction in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the British GP in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the project at a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that manager talks to a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to take charge. Moving away from managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

The Future

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be proven in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount at stake for F1, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta