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Just over one year in the past at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's latest entry for the 2026 season. Establishing the organization from the ground up has entailed a hectic pace of work that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As the sport descends on Vegas this weekend, the team understand time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Australia

At the season finale of the season to be held in the America, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 shortly after it was created, when the organization were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its center ever since and enjoys a amused expression when considering the journey.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what you’ve done and go: ‘Wow, what an achievement what we’ve done in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “And then the very next instant you realize: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Chester had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the task of introducing the iconic American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors Corporation, into F1.

“Creating an F1 team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an existing team you don’t get the possibility to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that passes minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Australia and goals are being handled.

“One must presume that any new team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” Lowdon noted this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The first thing we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So that we arrive and we operate well. We seek to prove that we are a serious contender executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement subsequently.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Push

In August they signed Checo Pérez and Valtteri as their racers for the 2026 season, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver expressed the mood of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we have a realistic outlook,” Bottas stated. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to finish last. In my view with this structure, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to advance swiftly up to the pace and taste victory.”

To realize that ambition hiring has been in top gear, with employees now at in excess of 400 and planned to hit the objective of six hundred rapidly. Alongside their present headquarters at the UK base, the team are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM plant in Charlotte, where they are building the center to produce the 2029 engine, planned for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will use Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Cologne, Germany. It is a sophisticated organisation, at odds with the trend in the sport for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which Chester referred.

Apollo Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We have a clear-eyed view, we know how challenging it is. The timelines, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a decentralized management akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all tackling various components of the project in a different facilities.

“In a system where you follow a process where an issue arises and they raise it up to their supervisor, that manager consults a manager in another department, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Nick Chester. “So we empower staff to really get on with it. Eliminating hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and faster.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be tested in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a significant degree riding on this for F1, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the emerging American Colton Herta