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A little more than twelve months ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were at last awarded the go-ahead as Formula One’s latest participant for the 2026 season. Building the squad from the ground up has involved a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has likened to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Las Vegas this weekend, Cadillac know the deadline is approaching.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the final race of the championship to be hosted in the America, with around 100 days to go before they make their debut for the first time in Melbourne at the first race of 2026, Cadillac have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a monumental endeavor, they are aware there will not be adequate time.

The chief technical officer, Nick Chester, became part of the newly formed project in March 2023 not long after it was formed, when the team were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core ever since and enjoys a wry smile when thinking about the ride.

“You can have five minutes reflecting at what the team has achieved and say: ‘Wow, isn’t this fantastic what the team has created in less than three years,’” Chester states. “And then the following moment you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a great deal to do.’”

A Unique Task

The CTO achieved victories at Renault in Fernando Alonso’s victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in command of technical development at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but no other project has truly matched the mission of bringing the quintessentially American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Creating an Formula One team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he observes. “There's nothing comparable. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to alter team culture.”

With each day that elapses focus are sharper on the impending decisive point in Australia and goals are being managed.

“You have to assume that any new team entering the sport is probably going to finish last but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” the team principal stated earlier this year and while the CTO echoed this he thought the squad had a point to prove as well.

“The initial objective we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we show up and we perform competently. We aim to demonstrate that this is a professional operation executing the correct procedures on the track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we want to show progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive

In the summer they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, Red Bull and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver reflected the attitude of combative optimism.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a massive task to do, and it will likely be almost certainly a difficult start, because it is F1. But our goal isn't to remain at the rear. I am confident given this organization, with this group, these people, there is every reason that we can't manage to progress rapidly to a competitive level and taste victory.”

To achieve that goal staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with employees now at over 400 and scheduled to attain the target of six hundred swiftly. Alongside their existing facility at the UK base, the organization are in the midst of building an main base at Fishers in Indy and there is the GM plant in North Carolina, where they are constructing the center to build the new engine, planned for 2029 – in the meantime they will run power from Ferrari – and the Toyota's wind tunnel in Cologne. It is a intricate organisation, at odds with the movement in Formula One for increased consolidation, and has prompted the new cultural approach to which the CTO referred.

NASA Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” remarked the team principal just before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We are pragmatic, we understand how challenging it is. The deadlines, they’re super, super, super short. Well, we aren't launching a lunar mission, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, as opposed to the traditional management structure, a flat management structure akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of project teams all focusing on various components of the project across a multiple sites.

“In a system where you follow a procedure where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their supervisor, that leader consults a supervisor at a different location, it goes back down the chain, it’s super slow,” says the CTO. “Therefore we enable staff to handle things directly. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and quicker.”

The Future

The success of this nimble methodology will be evaluated in the heat of competition when the season begins and there is no little amount riding on this for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their test driver the 25-year-old Californian Colton Herta