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Just over a full year previously at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were ultimately given the official approval as Formula One’s latest entry for the 2026 season. Building the team from nothing has involved a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Australia

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed operation in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.

“You can have five minutes thinking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yes, there is still a great deal to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a factory team backed by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Building an grand prix team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you won't have the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that elapses thoughts are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team entering the sport is going to be last but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal commented recently and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he believed the team had a reputation to build as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” Chester explains. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We want to show that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo remarkable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at more than 400 and planned to hit the objective of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their existing facility at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, where they are constructing the plant to manufacture the power unit, scheduled for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, contrary to the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester alluded.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” stated the team principal just before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how tough it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all focusing on various components of the project in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they escalate it to their supervisor, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Chester. “So we empower people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for each action is far more efficient and faster.”

The Future

The success of this nimble strategy will be tested in the pressure of racing in 2026 and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta