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Approximately twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the go-ahead as Formula One’s most recent participant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from nothing has involved a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport descends on the Vegas strip this race weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.

The Countdown to Melbourne

At the last event of the campaign to be staged in the US, with just over a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will not be sufficient time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the squad were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its heart ever since and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.

“You might get five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and go: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the next minute you think: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Nick Chester enjoyed success at Renault in the driver Fernando Alonso's championship-winning campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of technical direction at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of introducing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “There's nothing comparable. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With every day that goes by thoughts are increasingly concentrated on the impending decisive point in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“You have to assume that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO echoed this he thought the team had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we aim to demonstrate is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “In order that we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the track. Once we prove that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Effort

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a pair notable for their priceless expertise in operating at the leading positions in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes, and the Finnish driver echoed the sentiment of fighting spirit.

“Naturally, we’re realistic,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with these individuals, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly up to the pace and enjoy some success.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in full swing, with personnel now at more than 400 and planned to hit the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of completing an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the facility to build the power unit, set for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a sophisticated structure, at odds with the direction in the sport for more centralization, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester alluded.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We have a clear-eyed view, we recognize how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. OK, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on different aspects of the project at a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader consults a leader somewhere else, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “So we empower team members to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for each action is much smoother and faster.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is a considerable amount at stake for Formula One, too. Cadillac have taken on as their development driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta