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Approximately one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the go-ahead as the world of Formula One's latest entrant for 2026. Building the team from scratch has entailed a intense operating tempo that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the Apollo program. As the sport arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, the team understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over a hundred days to go before they hit the circuit 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 monumental endeavor, they are cognizant there will never be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic team in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart since then and enjoys a wry smile when reflecting on the ride.

“There might be five minutes reflecting at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “But then the next minute you realize: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of bringing the all-American Cadillac marque, a factory team sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an grand prix team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that passes minds are sharper on the looming moment of truth in Australia and expectations are being managed.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an feat in itself,” the team principal noted this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a reputation to build as well.

“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we show up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender doing the correct procedures on the circuit. After we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we aim to demonstrate progression from there on.”

Racing Talent and Recruitment Push

In late summer they signed Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem remarkable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “There’s going to be a huge amount of work to do, and it will likely be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. In my view with this structure, with this group, these personnel, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal recruitment has been in overdrive, with staff now up to in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the goal of six hundred swiftly. Complementing their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the phase of completing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are building the facility to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.

Apollo Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have embraced, instead of the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure similar to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of specialist groups all working on distinct elements of the mission at a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that supervisor communicates with a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to handle things directly. Moving away from managerial sign-off for everything is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this agile strategy will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount riding on this for the sport, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their reserve driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta