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Just over twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's latest participant for 2026. Building the organization from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the deadline is approaching.

The Tight Timeline to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with just over a hundred days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will never be sufficient time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the embryonic project in March 2023 shortly after it was established, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and has a knowing grin when considering the journey.

“You can have a brief moment reflecting at what the team has achieved and think: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's championship-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has been quite like the task of launching the quintessentially American Cadillac brand, a manufacturer-backed entry backed by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that goes by focus are sharper on the approaching decisive point in Australia and targets are being managed.

“One must presume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Nick Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the team had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he emphasizes. “In order that we turn up and we function efficiently. We aim to demonstrate that we are a serious contender doing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate progression after that.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort

In the summer they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a duo remarkable for their priceless expertise in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we’re realistic,” he commented. “There’s going to be a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view given this organization, with these individuals, these personnel, there’s no reason why we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in overdrive, with staff now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the target of 600 swiftly. Complementing their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the process of building an headquarters at Fishers, Indiana in Indianapolis and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are developing the center to produce the 2029 engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a intricate structure, contrary to the trend in Formula One for more centralization, and has led to the innovative team culture to which the CTO referred.

NASA Model

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon shortly before the British GP in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we understand how difficult it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, instead of the conventional chain of command, a decentralized management akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a range of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a protocol where someone has a problem and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a supervisor in another department, it goes back down the chain, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to people to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is far more efficient and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this flexible approach will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix when the season begins and there is a significant degree at stake for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta