Cadillac has faced a "pretty frightening" journey en route to joining the F1 grid, according to the team's executive engineering consultant Pat Symonds.
The American squad was granted formal approval to set up its own squad for 2026 in March earlier this year.
However, the project has been in the works for some time, originally spearheaded by former F1 driver Michael Andretti.
Cadillac will field Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as its drivers next year, with former Manor boss Graeme Lowdon holding the role of team principal.
Symonds, who has decades of experience in F1, joined the team in early 2024 and detailed the significant growth that has taken place since the start of the year.
"It’s pretty frightening," Symonds told media including RacingNews365.
"What is absolutely amazing is the commitment that everyone at Cadillac has had to this new team.
"We didn't actually get our official entry until March 7th of this year, and that's 364 days before FP1 in Australia.
"You cannot put a team together in 364 days. So there was this incredible commitment prior to that to get people on board.
"One of the things I thought was going to be most challenging was recruitment, and indeed it has been.
"The beginning of the year, we had 159 people in the UK working on a project with support from all of Eric’s people.
“By the time we got the entry, we were up to about 209 and now we're at 426, so that growth has been really rapid. That’s been very difficult."
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Real quality
Cadillac has established a base at Silverstone as it commences on a path that it hopes will lead to the forefront of the F1 grid.
However, it is also constructing a facility in Indiana, which will serve as the headquarters of all of its racing operations.
Symonds, who is well-versed in overseeing the construction of F1 cars, detailed the added baggage that comes with preparing for a team's first full season.
"When I arrived, I think the first thing that struck me - of course, there are an awful lot of people I knew, a lot of people I've worked with in the past - but what struck me was the real quality of the work that was being done there," he said.
"There are an awful lot of things that are real front of the grid quality. So it's a challenge. There's an awful lot to do.
"I'll never say that building an F1 car is easy. It's not easy, but I've done around 40 of them now, so you sort of get to know what has to be done and when it has to be done by.
"The rest of it, building all the infrastructure around it, all the processes, all the procedures, all the logistics, all the buildings, you just don't do it very often.
"It’s a task that is not only incredibly difficult, but you just don't have that experience of having done it so many times before. That's been a huge challenge that people have risen to so well."
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