INTERVIEW: Cadillac’s countdown to be ready for Formula 1

It has been an arduous undertaking so far, and continues to be so as the clock counts down towards that historic day at Albert Park. The sport will finally welcome an 11^th team on the grid after so much resistance, through an entry process phase initiated by the FIA and ultimately rubber stamped by F1 but not before a considerable degree of consternation.

Michael Andretti, a staple of American motorsport, set the ball rolling on the bid only for F1 to reject it. When he stepped back from his position as chief executive of Andretti Global last autumn, it reopened the door. With the Cadillac entry backed by GM and TWG Motorsports, acceptance was eventually granted.

From the FIA's initial announcement through to F1's statement of confirmation, 764 days elapsed, leaving Cadillac 366 days to be ready to line up in Melbourne on 8^th March 2026.

Through it all, and now firmly at the heart of it, has been Graeme Lowdon, the former chief executive of the defunct Manor Racing who initially started as a consultant with Andretti before taking up the role of team principal.

Aware of the perils and pitfalls of putting a Formula 1 team together, given the hoops Manor was forced to jump through to make the grid in 2010, Lowdon's first words of advice to Andretti were two-fold. Initially, on how the complicated entry process works, and far more pertinently, telling him to start building a team with immediate effect, without waiting for F1's seal of approval.

It was a major gamble, particularly after F1 initially rejected Andretti, but over the two years of the bid process, Lowdon was never in doubt that it would ultimately prove successful.

Asked at a select media gathering how many times during the 764 days he thought it would not happen, Lowdon categorically stated: "Never!”

"I got frustrated during that time because there were periods when it just looked as if it would take longer. But for me, it was really straightforward. You just go back to the basics of what you know, what is it that we're bringing into Formula 1, and when you look at the value proposition that's coming in, there was just no way it wasn't going to happen. The problem was when.

"But I never doubted it, not once. Otherwise, I would have sat on a beach somewhere."

Over those two years, people were hired and facilities put in place, including at Silverstone. On the day F1 confirmed Cadillac's bid, Lowdon sat down and personally wrote a letter of thanks to all staff who had put their lives and careers on the line to work on the project.

The Silverstone site currently comprises six units just a stone's throw from Aston Martin's state-of-the-art £180million headquarters.

Six will eventually be whittled down to four next year, leaving the UK to provide Cadillac's technical, production and logistics centres. There will also be a small machine shop. Silverstone will serve as one of the team's four sites overall, which also includes its headquarters in Indiana, along with other bases in North Carolina and Michigan.

Additional complications are that the team is currently in the process of building a new 400,000sq ft factory in Indiana, due to open early next year, whilst it is also using Toyota's wind tunnel facility in Cologne.

Logistically, it would appear a nightmare. Lowdon concedes there are difficulties, which is why a certain management structure has been implemented.

"If you look at the task in hand, we've got immovable deadlines, and a massive necessity for peer-to-peer interaction," he said. "So we need engineers talking to engineers across all the different sites.

"We've looked to have a very flat management structure, highly modelled on the Apollo Project. It's very similar. OK, we're not putting a man on the moon, but it feels like it sometimes."

As to what that entails, Lowdon added: "Race teams are often described in military terms and organised in a kind of pyramid, with one person at the top. A typical military structure is command and control, so someone issues commands, people do things.”

"When it's multi-site like us, that becomes a massive challenge, and what you can't have is an engineer having to go up and down a particular hierarchy and then hop across, and in our case, not just a different geographical location but a different country altogether.

"We have split the business into 12 distinct offices. They all communicate with each other, and they are all totally geographically agnostic. It doesn't matter where you sit, and so far, it works, and time difference is not an issue because nobody ever sleeps."

In terms of staff numbers, the recruitment process at present is unrelenting. Over 400 people have been hired, with Lowdon of the belief that another 200 are required. The majority of those are in manufacturing, as the team will outsource initially as it builds up its workforce.

Two of the key components for the team are yet to be hired, namely the drivers. Experienced names such as Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas have been mentioned, and it would be no surprise if they filled the vacant seats.

"A good comment from someone walking around and seeing all this stuff [going on at Silverstone] was that they could see why the drivers aren't the number one thing on the list," said Lowdon.

"Nothing's decided yet. We know who's on the market. We've got a good idea of what we need, but we're still some way off reaching that stage. There's a very strong argument to say that a new team in its first year of racing would benefit hugely from people who are experienced."

With just 280 days remaining between now (1^st July) and getting two cars on the grid on 8^th March, it appears an almost impossible task for Cadillac to be fully operational. Naturally, where there is a will, there is a way.

Understandably, however, the bar for next year is not being set too high.

"In talking with our shareholders, we have discussions about what expectations should be," said Lowdon. "The easiest way I can describe it to them is to imagine if you own a Formula 1 team for ten years, and then another team rocks up and beats you. You would be apoplectic; you would be so annoyed.

"So, you have to assume any new team coming in is going to be last, otherwise something's gone wrong somewhere else. And to a large extent, that's the only way you can set the frame.

"What are we trying to do? We're trying to be as competitive as we possibly can, and we're realistic. We know how difficult it is. You've seen the timelines. They're super, super, super short.

"We have no idea at the moment, none whatsoever as to where we are. We can see the numbers. We're happy with our progress, but we just don't know, other than if we beat someone, then someone's going to be angry."

Images courtesy of Getty Images.