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Just over one year in the past at the Vegas Grand Prix, the Cadillac racing team were at last awarded the green light as F1's newest entry for the 2026 season. Building the squad from nothing has entailed a intense work rate that the team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has compared to the Apollo moon landing. As F1 converges on Las Vegas this weekend, the team understand the deadline is approaching.

The Countdown to Australia

At the season finale of the championship to be held in the US, with just over three months to go before they make their debut for the inaugural time in Australia at the 2026 opener, the Cadillac F1 project have come on in leaps and bounds but, in what must seem like a sisyphean challenge, they are conscious there will not be sufficient time.

The technical director, Nick Chester, joined the nascent project in the spring of 2023 not long after it was created, when the squad were without even an approved entry. He has been at its core since then and enjoys a amused expression when reflecting on the journey.

“There might be a short period thinking back at what you have accomplished and say: ‘Amazing, isn’t this fantastic what we have built in under three years,’” he notes. “And then the very next instant you think: ‘Yeah, we still have a significant amount to do.’”

A One-of-a-Kind Opportunity

Chester achieved victories at the Renault team in Alonso's victorious years of 2005 and 2006 and was in charge of engineering strategy at the new Mercedes-Benz Formula E team, but nothing has been quite like the mission of launching the all-American Cadillac brand, a works entry sponsored by the owner, GM, into Formula One.

“Establishing an F1 team from scratch, when are you ever going to get a chance to do that?” he observes. “It is like nothing else. In an well-set team you don’t get the possibility to change cultural approach.”

With each passing day that passes focus are more focused on the impending decisive point in Melbourne and expectations are being handled.

“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 feat in itself,” Graeme Lowdon commented this year and while the CTO echoed this he believed the squad had a statement to make as well.

“The first thing we want to show is that we deserve to be there,” he says. “So that we show up and we operate well. We aim to demonstrate that we’re a proper team executing the right things on the track. Once we prove that we are a legitimate team, then we want to show improvement from there on.”

Pilot Selection and Hiring Effort

In August they recruited Sergio Pérez and Valtteri as their pilots for the 2026 season, a pair distinguished for their vast knowledge in performing at the front in two of the sport’s biggest teams, the Red Bull team and the Mercedes team, and Valtteri Bottas reflected the mood of fighting spirit.

“Of course, we’re realistic,” he said. “We face a mountain of work to do, and it’s going to be most likely a difficult start, because it is F1. But we aren't joining to remain at the rear. I believe with this setup, with this group, these people, it's entirely possible we can't manage to advance swiftly to the front and taste victory.”

To that end hiring has been in overdrive, with personnel now up to in excess of 400 and intended to reach the goal of 600 members swiftly. In addition to their current base at Silverstone, the team are in the phase of finishing an HQ at the Fishers location in the Indianapolis area and there is the GM works in North Carolina, where they are developing the plant to build the 2029 engine, planned for 2029 – until then they will run Ferrari power units – and the Toyota wind tunnel in Germany. It is a complex organization, at odds with the direction in F1 for more centralization, and has inspired the innovative team culture to which Chester referred.

Apollo Blueprint

“It's closely based on the Apollo project,” stated Lowdon shortly before the British Grand Prix in the summer. “We’re realistic, we understand how challenging it is. The timelines, are extremely compressed. OK, it's not a space expedition, but it feels like it sometimes.”

So they have adopted, rather than the usual hierarchical system, a non-hierarchical approach akin to that of the space agency's, where there were a assortment of Apollo teams all working on various components of the project at a different facilities.

“If you have to go through a protocol where someone has a problem and they escalate it to their team leader, that supervisor talks to a manager at a different location, it travels back down, the process is very slow,” says Chester. “Therefore we enable team members to take charge. Moving away from hierarchical consent for everything is much smoother and more rapid.”

Upcoming Challenges

The efficacy of this agile methodology will be proven in the heat of competition in 2026 and there is a considerable amount on the line for the sport, too. Cadillac have signed as their test driver the young Californian Colton Herta