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Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the official approval as Formula One’s most recent entry for the 2026 season. Constructing the organization from nothing has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac know time is getting tight.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 season opener, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic operation in the spring of 2023 shortly after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a wry smile when thinking about the experience.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yes, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Chester had success at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac marque, a factory team backed by the parent company, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Creating an Formula One team from nothing, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to alter team culture.”

With each passing day that goes by minds are increasingly concentrated on the looming critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the track. When we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on improvement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Push

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

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a difficult start, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there’s no reason why we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition recruitment has been in full swing, with employees now at over 400 and intended to hit the goal of 600 members rapidly. In addition to their present headquarters at the Silverstone circuit, the organization are in the phase of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are constructing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will use power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.

Apollo Inspiration

“It's closely based on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon just before the Silverstone race in July. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, rather than the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all focusing on distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.

“When you must follow a procedure where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their supervisor, that supervisor communicates with a supervisor somewhere else, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the intensity of Grand Prix in 2026 and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have taken on as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta