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Just over a full year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were finally given the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest entry for 2026. Building the team from the ground up has required a frenetic work rate that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 arrives on Vegas this race weekend, the team know the clock is ticking.

The Tight Timeline to Melbourne

At the season finale of the championship to be hosted in the United States, with around 100 days to go before they take to the track for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending challenge, they are cognizant there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, came aboard the nascent team in early 2023 shortly after it was formed, when the squad were without even an official entry. He has been at its heart ever since and enjoys a amused expression when thinking about the journey.

“There might be five minutes thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Incredible, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” Chester states. “Then the following moment you realize: ‘Well, we still have quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Challenge

Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious seasons of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of technical development at the recently formed Mercedes Formula E team, but no other project has quite compared with the mission of introducing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Establishing an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to transform cultural approach.”

With each day that goes by minds are sharper on the approaching moment of truth in the Australian GP and targets are being set realistically.

“It's reasonable to expect that any incoming team coming in is going to be last but merely participating will be an achievement in itself,” Lowdon noted earlier this year and while Chester agreed with this sentiment he thought the organization had a statement to make as well.

“The initial objective we want to show is that we belong on the grid,” he emphasizes. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation doing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we aim to demonstrate progression subsequently.”

Driver Lineup and Hiring Drive

In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a tandem notable for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two top-tier teams, Red Bull Racing and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of determined optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be almost certainly a challenging beginning, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. In my view with this structure, with this team, these personnel, it's entirely possible we can't manage to progress rapidly to the front and achieve good results.”

To that end staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with personnel now reaching more than 400 and scheduled to reach the goal of 600 swiftly. Alongside their current base at the UK base, the squad are in the phase of building an headquarters at Fishers in Indianapolis and there is the General Motors facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the new engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a sophisticated organization, at odds with the movement in the sport for increased consolidation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which the CTO alluded.

NASA Inspiration

“We've drawn heavily from the NASA moon mission,” said Graeme Lowdon ahead of the Silverstone race in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The schedules, are extremely compressed. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have embraced, as opposed to the usual hierarchical system, a flat management structure akin to that of Nasa’s, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all tackling distinct elements of the project at a multiple sites.

“When you must follow a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager consults a manager in another department, it goes back down the chain, the process is very slow,” notes Nick Chester. “We give authority to team members to really get on with it. Eliminating management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”

The Future

The effectiveness of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is no little amount on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta