By: Chris Perkins, writer and editor, GM News
Inside the HQ where the Cadillac Formula 1® Team is designing and building race cars
2026-01-19
Racing in Formula 1® is hard, but the new Cadillac Formula 1® Team has a particularly difficult challenge.
“We’re going to be racing with some of the best teams in the world,” says Graeme Lowdon, Team Principal for the Cadillac Formula 1® Team. “Their objective at the minute is to race, design, and build Formula 1® cars. We’re building factories as well.”
The team behind What Makes Fast, a docuseries on the birth of the Cadillac Formula 1® Team, visited the team’s British factory for its fourth episode. There, just across the road from Silverstone Circuit in the UK, hundreds of employees are designing and building the machines Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas will soon race.
Being a Formula 1® constructor is about more than just assembling a race car. Teams design and build nearly every component in-house, even down to the nuts and bolts, and the Cadillac Formula 1® Team is no exception.
“When you’re building a Formula 1® car, it’s an incredibly creative process,” Lowdon says. “You’re designing something literally from scratch.”
What Makes Fast captures the team creating all sorts of prototype components, from small-scale car models for wind-tunnel testing to full-size parts for safety testing.
What’s astonishing is just how quickly all of this came together. Nick Chester, Chief Technical Officer, says that when he joined the Cadillac Formula 1® Team three years ago, there were only six people working in the aerodynamics department. Now, the aero team has grown to over 100 engineers. Lots of other team members share similar stories.
You have to see the scale of this undertaking to truly appreciate what the Cadillac Formula 1® Team is doing. There’s more beyond Silverstone, too. The team is working at the GM Motorsports facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a new campus in Fishers, Indiana is under construction.
It’s these very buildings and people that earned the Cadillac Formula 1® Team its spot on the grid. “To show that you have what it takes in Formula 1®,” says Cadillac Formula 1® Team CEO Dan Towriss, “you have to build it first.”
The facilities are impressive, but they’re nothing without the talented people working inside.
“We can’t magic something up,” Lowdon says. “What we can do is get the right people together. Whether they’re designing a component of minimum weight or they’re designing the aerodynamics, or whether it’s the driver, it’s the people that make the difference, and it’s the people that make fast.”
Watch the full episode below.
Racing in Formula 1® is hard, but the new Cadillac Formula 1® Team has a particularly difficult challenge.
“We’re going to be racing with some of the best teams in the world,” says Graeme Lowdon, Team Principal for the Cadillac Formula 1® Team. “Their objective at the minute is to race, design, and build Formula 1® cars. We’re building factories as well.”
The team behind What Makes Fast, a docuseries on the birth of the Cadillac Formula 1® Team, visited the team’s British factory for its fourth episode. There, just across the road from Silverstone Circuit in the UK, hundreds of employees are designing and building the machines Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas will soon race.
Being a Formula 1® constructor is about more than just assembling a race car. Teams design and build nearly every component in-house, even down to the nuts and bolts, and the Cadillac Formula 1® Team is no exception.
“When you’re building a Formula 1® car, it’s an incredibly creative process,” Lowdon says. “You’re designing something literally from scratch.”
What Makes Fast captures the team creating all sorts of prototype components, from small-scale car models for wind-tunnel testing to full-size parts for safety testing.
What’s astonishing is just how quickly all of this came together. Nick Chester, Chief Technical Officer, says that when he joined the Cadillac Formula 1® Team three years ago, there were only six people working in the aerodynamics department. Now, the aero team has grown to over 100 engineers. Lots of other team members share similar stories.
You have to see the scale of this undertaking to truly appreciate what the Cadillac Formula 1® Team is doing. There’s more beyond Silverstone, too. The team is working at the GM Motorsports facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a new campus in Fishers, Indiana is under construction.
It’s these very buildings and people that earned the Cadillac Formula 1® Team its spot on the grid. “To show that you have what it takes in Formula 1®,” says Cadillac Formula 1® Team CEO Dan Towriss, “you have to build it first.”
The facilities are impressive, but they’re nothing without the talented people working inside.
“We can’t magic something up,” Lowdon says. “What we can do is get the right people together. Whether they’re designing a component of minimum weight or they’re designing the aerodynamics, or whether it’s the driver, it’s the people that make the difference, and it’s the people that make fast.”
Watch the full episode below.