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Approximately a full year ago at the Nevada Grand Prix, Cadillac were ultimately given the green light as Formula One’s most recent entrant for the 2026 season. Constructing the team from the ground up has entailed a hectic work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo program. As F1 descends on Vegas this weekend, the team are aware the clock is ticking.

The Race Against Time to Australia

At the last event of the campaign to be hosted in the United States, with just over three months to go before they hit the circuit for the inaugural time in Melbourne at the 2026 season opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a never-ending task, they are conscious there will never be adequate time.

The CTO, Nick Chester, became part of the embryonic operation in March 2023 not long after it was created, when the team were without even an official entry. He has been at its core since then and has a knowing grin when considering the ride.

“You might get a short period reflecting at what you’ve done and say: ‘Incredible, what an achievement what the team has created in less than three years,’” he notes. “Then the following moment you consider: ‘Yes, we’ve still got quite a lot to do.’”

An Unprecedented Task

The CTO achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in control of engineering strategy at the then-new Mercedes electric racing team, but no other project has been quite like the challenge of bringing the all-American Cadillac name, a works entry backed by the corporate entity, GM, into the pinnacle of motorsport.

“Building an F1 team from scratch, when will you ever have the possibility to do that?” he says. “It's unparalleled. In an established team you don’t get the opportunity to change organizational mindset.”

With each passing day that passes focus are increasingly concentrated on the approaching critical moment in the Australian GP and expectations are being managed.

“You have to assume that any incoming team joining the grid is likely to start at the back but merely participating will be an accomplishment in itself,” Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO shared this view he felt the team had a statement to make as well.

“Our primary goal we aim to demonstrate is that we should be there,” he says. “So we turn up and we function efficiently. We want to show that we’re a proper team executing the proper actions on the race track. After we have demonstrated that our credentials are solid, then we will focus on progression from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Recruitment Drive

In August they signed Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their racers for 2026, a duo notable for their vast knowledge in competing at the sharp end in two championship-winning squads, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and the Finnish driver echoed the attitude of fighting spirit.

“Certainly, we are pragmatic,” he commented. “We face a massive task to do, and it’s going to be most likely a challenging beginning, because it is F1. But we’re not there to remain at the rear. In my view with this setup, with this team, this staff, there is every reason that we won't be able to get relatively quickly to a competitive level and enjoy some success.”

To realize that ambition staff acquisition has been in overdrive, with staff now at in excess of 400 and planned to reach the objective of 600 rapidly. Complementing their existing facility at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at Fishers in Indy and there is the General Motors facility in North Carolina, where they are developing the center to manufacture the 2029 engine, set for the 2029 season – in the meantime they will operate with Ferrari engines – and the aerodynamic facility in Germany. It is a sophisticated organization, different from the direction in the sport for greater centralisation, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Nick Chester alluded.

NASA Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon just before the British Grand Prix in July. “We are pragmatic, we know how challenging it is. The deadlines, are incredibly tight. Alright, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have implemented, 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 focusing on different aspects of the project at a variety of locations.

“If you have to go through a process where a challenge emerges and they raise it up to their manager, that manager communicates with a supervisor in another department, it travels back down, it becomes inefficient,” explains Chester. “We give authority to staff to really get on with it. Avoiding managerial sign-off for everything is far more efficient and faster.”

Upcoming Challenges

The effectiveness of this nimble strategy will be proven in the intensity of Grand Prix next season and there is a significant degree on the line for Formula One, too. Cadillac have recruited as their reserve driver the 25-year-old American Colton Herta