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Just over one year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last granted the green light as the world of Formula One's most recent participant for the 2026 season. Establishing the team from nothing has required a hectic operating tempo that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has equated to the NASA lunar mission. As Formula One arrives on Las Vegas this weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the final race of the season to be staged in the United States, with approximately 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the organization were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the ride.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he says. “But then the following moment you realize: ‘Yes, we’ve still got a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Nick Chester achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s championship-winning campaigns of 2005/2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has quite compared with the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry supported by the corporate entity, General Motors, into F1.

“Creating an F1 team from the ground up, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you rarely get the chance to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that goes by minds are more focused on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and goals are being managed.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad coming in is likely to start at the back but just making it to the starting line will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented recently and while Nick Chester echoed this he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the right things on the circuit. After we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Effort

In August they contracted Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for 2026, a tandem notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the front in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and Bottas expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Of course, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We have a huge amount of work to do, and we expect probably a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. I believe given this organization, with this team, this staff, there’s no reason why we won't be able to progress rapidly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To that end recruitment has been in top gear, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to reach the target of 600 members quickly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the plant to build the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne. It is a complex structure, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has inspired the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred.

NASA Blueprint

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British GP in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we know how tough it is. The timelines, they’re super, super, super short. Alright, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, rather than the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach comparable to that of Nasa’s, where there were a variety of project teams all tackling different aspects of the program across a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their team leader, that manager talks to a manager somewhere else, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to handle things directly. Moving away from management approval for each action is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition next season and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. The Cadillac team have recruited as their reserve driver the young American Colton Herta