– Graeme Lowdon has not been the team principal at Cadillac since Wednesday. Regarding the location of his now former employer, he does not believe that shifting the focus to the USA will be a disadvantage for the Formula 1 newcomer. On the contrary: “What we are trying to do is actually turn that into an advantage,” he says.
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The American team currently operates from various locations: the headquarters is the control center in British Silverstone, plus facilities of General Motors in North Carolina and Michigan as well as the former Toyota wind tunnel in Cologne.
Currently, Cadillac is building a modern Formula 1 factory in Fishers, a suburb of Indianapolis, while the power unit division of General Motors is supposed to be based in Charlotte, where the parent company already owns facilities.
“The entire construction there is already very advanced,” says Lowdon about the new technology center in Fishers. Nevertheless, it will probably take a while before Cadillac can properly operate from there: “It is a huge project,” he says. The hope is currently for a start next year.
“It is still under construction at the moment, and there will soon be further announcements about when the various areas will go live,” says Lowdon. “This will happen step by step, because the site covers around 42,000 square meters. That is not exactly small.”
“Broader access to talent”
For Cadillac, the new structure will of course be a completely new logistical challenge, but Lowdon emphasizes the advantages when, unlike other Formula 1 teams, everything is not centralized in Europe: “I believe it actually gives us broader access to talent,” he stresses.
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“The focus is shifting, but there are individual focuses for different parts of the team. The aerodynamic design still has its focus in Silverstone, with the wind tunnel in Cologne,” says Lowdon.
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Other areas, however, will be very firmly established in Indianapolis. “What we are trying to do is actually turn that into an advantage by giving us a larger catchment area to recruit talent. It is not about moving things from Silverstone to Indianapolis, but about building something in Indianapolis.”
“At the moment we have a proven network of very good suppliers, but we are working with some of them to gradually build corresponding capacities in Indianapolis over time,” he continues. “That is not the easiest thing in the world – because if it were, everyone would do it, which obviously is not the case.”
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Cadillac is thus taking a different path than all other manufacturers. The question is whether it will also bring success. So far, American manufacturers outside of the Indy 500, which counted towards the World Championship in the 1950s, have won just two Grands Prix: in 1967 Dan Gurney won in Belgium in an Eagle, and in 1976 John Watson was responsible for the last US success in Austria in a Penske.
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