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A little more than one year ago at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately awarded the green light as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Establishing the team from nothing has entailed a frenetic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the NASA lunar mission. As F1 arrives on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac understand the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the US, with just over 100 days to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, Cadillac have made significant progress but, in what must seem like a monumental task, they are aware there will never be enough hours in the day.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, joined the newly formed project in the spring of 2023 soon after it was established, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core ever since and gets a amused expression when considering the experience.

“You can have a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in a short three-year period,’” he notes. “But then the very next instant you consider: ‘Yeah, we’ve still got a great deal to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

The CTO had success at the Renault team in the driver Fernando Alonso's victorious campaigns of the mid-2000s and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a manufacturer-backed entry sponsored by the corporate entity, General Motors Corporation, into Formula One.

“Establishing an F1 team from the ground up, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you won't have the chance to change cultural approach.”

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

“It's reasonable to expect that a brand-new squad entering the sport is probably going to finish last but simply getting on to the grid will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented earlier this year and while Nick Chester echoed this he felt the organization had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we intend to prove is that we belong on the grid,” he says. “So we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. Once we have demonstrated that we’re really credible, then we aim to demonstrate forward movement from there on.”

Driver Lineup and Recruitment Effort

In late summer they contracted Sergio Pérez and Bottas as their drivers for 2026, a duo notable for their invaluable experience in operating at the sharp end in two of the sport’s biggest teams, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and Bottas echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect probably a tough opening, because it's the top level of motorsport. But we’re not there to finish last. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, it's entirely possible we won't be able to get relatively quickly up to the pace and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal hiring has been in full swing, with staff now reaching in excess of 400 and scheduled to hit the target of 600 members quickly. In addition to their current base at the UK base, the organization are in the phase of building an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are constructing the facility to manufacture the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – for now they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a intricate organisation, contrary to the movement in Formula One for greater centralisation, and has inspired the new cultural approach to which Nick Chester referred.

Apollo Blueprint

“It’s highly modelled on the Apollo program,” stated Lowdon ahead of the British GP in July. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, rather than the conventional chain of command, a flat management structure comparable to that of the space agency's, where there were a variety of project teams all focusing on distinct elements of the program in a variety of locations.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where an issue arises and they escalate it to their manager, that leader talks to a leader in another department, it is relayed back, it’s super slow,” explains Chester. “So we empower staff to handle things directly. Avoiding management approval for each action is far more efficient and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this flexible methodology will be evaluated in the pressure of racing next season and there is a significant degree on the line for F1, too. Cadillac have taken on as their test driver the emerging Californian Colton Herta