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Just over twelve months ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the official approval as the world of Formula One's newest entrant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has entailed a intense work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on the Vegas strip this weekend, Cadillac understand time is getting tight.

The Countdown to Australia

At the season finale of the campaign to be staged in the America, with around 100 days to go before they hit the circuit for the first time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are conscious there will not be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the embryonic team in early 2023 soon after it was established, when the organization were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart since then and has a knowing grin when considering the experience.

“You might get a short period looking back at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what we have built in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the next minute you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

The CTO enjoyed success at the Renault team in Fernando Alonso’s title-winning seasons of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the then-new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the challenge of introducing the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the parent company, GM, into Formula One.

“Building an grand prix team from nothing, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you rarely get the possibility to change cultural approach.”

With each passing day that goes by minds are sharper on the impending critical moment in Melbourne and goals are being set realistically.

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon stated recently and while the CTO agreed with this sentiment he felt the team had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we perform competently. We want to show that we are a serious contender executing the correct procedures on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Team Building Drive

In late summer they recruited Checo Pérez and Bottas as their racers for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in operating at the leading positions in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver expressed the sentiment of combative optimism.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he said. “We have a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a tough opening, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to attain the target of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their present headquarters at Silverstone, the squad are in the process of building an main base at the Fishers location in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are building the plant to build the new engine, set for 2029 – for now they will run Ferrari engines – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a complex organization, different from the movement in the sport for more centralization, and has led to the fresh organizational mindset to which Nick Chester alluded.

NASA Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we recognize how tough it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it can seem that way.”

So they have embraced, instead of the traditional management structure, a non-hierarchical approach similar to that of NASA's, where there were a assortment of project teams all working on different aspects of the project across a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a process where an issue arises and they report it to their manager, that supervisor communicates with a manager in another department, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “Therefore we enable staff to really get on with it. Moving away from management approval for all decisions is so much cleaner and quicker.”

What Lies Ahead

The efficacy of this flexible strategy will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is no little amount on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have signed as their reserve driver the young Californian Colton Herta