The clock is ticking until Cadillac joins the Formula 1 grid. Literally.
On the wall of every office that we have is a countdown clock, team principal Graeme Lowdon told The Associated Press in a recent interview. Its counting down to two things.
One is the first fire-up of the car with its engine, and then the other is free practice at Cadillacs first official F1 session in Melbourne, Australia in March next year.
It will be the start of a new mission for General Motors, and the end of a process to join F1 which included years of negotiations, a change of name and leadership , even a U.S. Justice Department investigation .
Ted Lasso in F1
As a British racing boss creating an American team, Lowdon feels like an inverse Ted Lasso , the fictional U.S. soccer coach in London.
Hired in part for his experience navigating the sports complex process for approving new teams, Lowdon says hes worked hard to adapt to U.S. racing culture for a team which will build its cars out of Fishers, Indiana.
Theres also a design and manufacturing site near the British Grand Prix track at Silverstone, but Cadillac has a vision of running an American team, Lowdon said. The idea is to get as many different perspectives on designing a race car as possible.
Formula 1 is a very creative business, Lowdon said. With diversity of thought comes innovation and hopefully lap time.
Lessons from NASA
Past attempts to operate an F1 team outside of the sports heartlands in England and Italy have rarely worked. Cadillac is taking lessons from the 1960s space race.
Rather than read a list of racing failures, Lowdon looked for non-F1 projects with immovable deadlines, huge amount of public scrutiny, multiple sites, highly technical, he said. The best example I could find were the the Apollo missions.
I looked a lot into how NASA had done the management structure of the business. I thought there were some very clever things that they did that we could build into a new design of a Formula 1 team, a complete new way of managing it. The primary objective was to maximize peer-to-peer communication between engineers.
F1s other American team, Haas, is more reliant on Europe. Its HQ is in North Carolina but the team is largely based in Britain and designs its cars in Italy.
Drivers on the short list
While existing teams have their race drivers heavily involved in the design of 2026 cars, Lowdon said the fact that Cadillac hasnt confirmed who its drivers will be shouldnt be seen as a setback.
There are three or four names on Cadillacs shortlist halfway through the 2025 season and Lowdon says Cadillac has more leverage in contract discussions than usual.
Because were out of sync with the other teams, were not under the same time pressure, Lowdon said. No driver is sitting there saying, Oh yeah, Aston Martin are going to sign me next week, if you dont sign them.
The new team could be a way back to F1 for drivers like Sergio Perez, Valtteri Bottas or Zhou Guanyu who lost their race seats for 2025. Theres also been speculation about various Americans and ex-F1 drivers like Mick Schumacher.
Bottas, a 10-time race winner for Mercedes, joked about the race to sign for Cadillac with a viral video on social media remarking on the nice seat in a Cadillac SUV.
Ive known him for a long time. I know his sense of humor, I appreciate his sense of humor and hes got a big fan following, Lowdon said. My phone got super busy almost immediately when (Cadillacs F1 entry) was confirmed. It was very clear that everyone wants to drive a Cadillac and so I guess Valtteri has just made it even more clear.
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AP auto racing:
凯迪拉克进军F1赛道的倒计时已经开始。确切地说，分秒必争。
车队领队格雷厄姆·洛登近日接受美联社采访时表示：'我们每间办公室的墙上都挂着一个倒计时时钟。它正在为两件事倒计时。'
其一是搭载引擎的赛车首次点火启动，其二则是明年三月在澳大利亚墨尔本举行的卡迪拉克首场官方F1赛事中的自由练习环节。
这将是通用汽车公司新使命的开端，也是其加入F1漫长征程的终点。这一过程历经数年谈判、公司更名与领导层更迭，甚至还包括美国司法部的调查。
泰德·拉索进军F1
作为一位创建美国车队的英国赛车主管，洛顿感觉自己像是“反向的泰德·拉索”——剧中那位在伦敦执教的虚构美国足球教练。
洛登表示，他之所以被聘用，部分原因在于他熟悉这项运动中新车队审批的复杂流程。为了这支将在印第安纳州费希尔市制造赛车的车队，他一直在努力适应美国的赛车文化。
洛登表示，虽然凯迪拉克在英国银石赛道附近设有设计和制造基地，但其愿景是打造一支'美国车队'。这一构想旨在汇聚尽可能多元化的赛车设计视角。
“一级方程式是一项极具创造力的运动，”洛顿说道，“思维的多样性会带来创新，并有望提升圈速。”
美国国家航空航天局的启示
过去尝试在英国和意大利这两大F1赛事核心区域之外运营车队鲜有成功先例。凯迪拉克正从20世纪60年代的太空竞赛中汲取经验。
洛登表示，与其罗列赛车领域的失败案例，他更倾向于寻找那些具有‘不可更改的截止期限、高度公众监督、多地点协作、技术难度极高’的非F1项目。‘我能想到的最佳范例就是阿波罗计划。’
我深入研究了美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的企业管理架构，认为他们的一些巧妙做法可以融入一级方程式车队的新设计中，形成一套全新的管理模式。其核心理念在于最大化工程师之间的点对点沟通。
F1的另一支美国车队哈斯（Haas）对欧洲的依赖程度更高。其总部位于北卡罗来纳州，但车队主要驻扎在英国，并在意大利设计赛车。
入围候选名单的驾驶员
尽管现有车队都让自家赛车手深度参与2026年赛车的设计工作，但洛登表示，凯迪拉克尚未确定车手人选的事实不应被视为一种劣势。
在2025赛季过半之际，凯迪拉克的候选名单上还有三四个名字，而洛登表示，凯迪拉克在合同谈判中比往常拥有更多筹码。
洛登表示：“由于我们与其他车队的步调不一致，因此并未面临相同的时间压力。如果你不签下他们，没有车手会坐在那里想着‘哦，阿斯顿·马丁下周就要签我了’。”
这支新车队可能成为塞尔吉奥·佩雷斯、瓦尔特利·博塔斯或周冠宇等车手重返F1的契机——他们已确定失去2025赛季的正式席位。此外，外界也在猜测包括米克·舒马赫在内的多位美国车手及前F1车手是否可能加入。
梅赛德斯车队十次分站赛冠军博塔斯以一段风靡社交媒体的视频调侃了与凯迪拉克签约的过程，他在视频中对凯迪拉克SUV的“舒适座椅”赞叹不已。
劳登表示："我认识他很久了，熟悉他的幽默感，也很欣赏他的幽默感，他拥有大批粉丝。当（凯迪拉克宣布进军F1）的消息确认后，我的电话几乎立刻被打爆。显然所有人都想开凯迪拉克，而瓦尔特里（指博塔斯）让这个意愿变得更明确了。"
美联社赛车新闻：
