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Approximately one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally granted the official approval as the world of Formula One's most recent entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from nothing has entailed a frenetic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this race weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be held in the US, with around a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in March 2023 soon after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its heart ever since and has a wry smile when reflecting on the journey.

“There might be a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we’ve done in under three years,’” he says. “And then the next minute you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Nick Chester enjoyed success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious seasons of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical development at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change team culture.”

With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the looming decisive point in the Australian GP and goals are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but just making it to the starting line will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated this year and while Chester shared this view he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we should be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we’re a proper team performing the correct procedures on the race track. After we prove that our credentials are solid, then we want to show improvement after that.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Push

In the summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for the 2026 season, a tandem distinguished for their priceless expertise in performing at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes, and Bottas expressed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to finish last. I am confident with this structure, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To that end hiring has been in top gear, with staff now up to over 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of completing an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are developing the plant to build the power unit, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex organization, contrary to the movement in F1 for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred to.

NASA Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the Silverstone race in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how difficult it is. The schedules, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of project teams all working on different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.

“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that supervisor talks to a supervisor in another department, it is relayed back, it becomes inefficient,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Avoiding hierarchical consent for each action is much smoother and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be tested in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their test driver the young American Colton Herta