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A little more than twelve months in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were finally given the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest participant for the 2026 season. Building the organization from nothing has required a hectic pace of work that the team boss, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the NASA lunar mission. As the sport converges on the Vegas strip this race weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the last event of the championship to be staged in the US, with around three months to go before they take to the track for the maiden outing 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 sisyphean task, they are cognizant there will never be enough hours in the day.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the newly formed project in early 2023 soon after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its center from that point and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“There might be a short period looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Amazing, what an achievement what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Challenge

Nick Chester had success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning years of the mid-2000s and was in control of engineering strategy at the recently formed Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has truly matched the challenge of bringing the iconic American Cadillac marque, a works entry backed by the owner, GM, into F1.

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

With each passing day that passes thoughts are more focused on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team coming in is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an feat in itself,” the team principal commented earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “In order that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation performing the proper actions on the circuit. When we’ve shown that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate improvement after that.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Drive

In the summer they recruited Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a pair notable for their invaluable experience in performing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the attitude of determined optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” Bottas stated. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be probably a tough opening, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to finish last. I believe with this setup, with these individuals, this staff, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in full swing, with employees now up to more than 400 and planned to reach the goal of 600 quickly. Complementing their present headquarters at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of finishing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to produce the 2029 engine, set for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organization, contrary to the movement in Formula One for more centralization, and has prompted the fresh organizational mindset to which Chester referred to.

NASA Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the NASA moon mission,” said the team principal ahead of the British Grand Prix in mid-season. “We’re realistic, we recognize how difficult it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. Alright, we’re not putting a man on the moon, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure similar to that of NASA's, where there were a variety of specialist groups all focusing on distinct elements of the program across a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a process where a challenge emerges and they report it to their team leader, that manager consults a supervisor at a different location, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” notes Chester. “We give authority to staff to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is so much cleaner and quicker.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this agile approach will be tested in the pressure of racing when the season begins and there is no little amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the emerging American Colton Herta