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A little more than twelve months in the past at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately granted the green light as F1's most recent entry for 2026. Constructing the squad from the ground up has required a hectic pace of work that the principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Melbourne

At the final race of the campaign to be staged in the United States, with around a hundred days to go before they make their debut for the maiden outing in Australia at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have advanced rapidly but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are aware there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, joined the nascent operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an confirmed place. He has been at its core since then and gets a knowing grin when reflecting on the ride.

“You might get a brief moment looking back at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Incredible, how impressive what we have built in a short three-year period,’” he says. “Then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Challenge

Chester achieved victories at Renault in Alonso's victorious years of the mid-2000s and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes Formula E team, but no previous experience has been quite like the task of launching the iconic American Cadillac name, a works entry sponsored by the owner, General Motors, into F1.

“Creating an F1 team from scratch, how often do you get the opportunity to do that?” Chester remarks. “It's unparalleled. In an well-set team you won't have the opportunity to change cultural approach.”

With every day that elapses minds are sharper on the impending moment of truth in Melbourne and expectations are being managed.

“One must presume that any incoming team joining the grid is going to be last but simply getting on to the grid will be an achievement in itself,” the team principal stated recently and while the CTO shared this view he felt the squad had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we arrive and we perform competently. We seek to prove that this is a professional operation executing the proper actions on the circuit. Once we’ve shown that we are a legitimate team, then we will focus on forward movement after that.”

Pilot Selection and Team Building Effort

In August they contracted Checo Pérez and Valtteri Bottas as their pilots for 2026, a duo distinguished for their invaluable experience in competing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and Mercedes-AMG, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of combative optimism.

“Naturally, we have a realistic outlook,” he said. “We have a mountain of work to do, and we expect most likely a challenging beginning, because this is Formula One. But we’re not there to stay at the back. I am confident with this structure, with this team, these people, there is every reason that we shouldn’t be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and achieve good results.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in top gear, with personnel now at over 400 and intended to attain the objective of 600 members quickly. Alongside their current base at the Silverstone circuit, the team are in the process of completing an main base at Fishers, Indiana in Indy and there is the GM works in Charlotte, where they are developing the center to produce the new engine, scheduled for 2029 – until then they will operate with Ferrari power units – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex structure, at odds with the trend in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.

NASA Model

“We've drawn heavily from the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the Silverstone race in mid-season. “We are pragmatic, we recognize how challenging it is. The schedules, are incredibly tight. OK, it's not a space expedition, but the pressure is comparable.”

So they have adopted, instead of the conventional chain of command, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a range of Apollo teams all working on distinct elements of the project in a different facilities.

“When you must follow a procedure where an issue arises and they raise it up to their manager, that supervisor consults a manager at a different location, it is relayed back, the process is very slow,” explains the CTO. “Therefore we enable team members to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for all decisions is so much cleaner and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The success of this nimble methodology will be tested in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a considerable amount riding on this for Formula One, too. The Cadillac team have signed as their development driver the young Californian Colton Herta