'There is a small Geordie enclave in the F1 paddock'
CADILLAC FORMULA 1 TEAMWhen the Formula 1 season roars back into life next month, there will be a new team in the mix and it is headed by a Northumbrian – Graeme Lowdon.
"It is fun for me in the Formula 1 paddock. There are some other people from the North East. So as we travel the world there is a small Geordie enclave in the Formula One paddock and I think that is really nice."
An engineer by training, Lowdon started off putting wi-fi on Virgin Trains and through that work met Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson, later going on to become chief executive officer for Virgin Racing.
He ran the Manor team in F1 through various guises from its entry as Virgin in 2010 until 2015.
And when General Motors was looking for a team principal for their new Cadillac team, they knew he was their man.
CADILLAC FORMULA 1 TEAMOn a rare visit home to the Tyne Valley where he was born and went to school, in the run up to Cadillac's inaugural Grand Prix - Australia on 8 March - he outlined his role.
"I guess team principal is the chief worrier, that's the job," he said.
"There are so many parallel workstreams that all have to come together and in the case of our team, that means operations both in the UK and also in the US, so it's very much a job of co-ordinating."
Building a brand new F1 team is no mean feat, a fact Lowdon can vouch for.
"There's a huge amount involved in building a team from scratch and it's a huge task.
"When people tune in and see the first grand prix in Melbourne, you see the two cars, you see the two drivers.
"This is sport and every sport has to have heroes and the drivers are, quite rightly, the heroes but behind that sits an enormous team of people."
In fact modern F1 teams are made up of about 1,000 people, leading Lowdon to describe the sport as "the greatest team game in the world".
The team has two highly experienced drivers to pilot their cars for the 24 rounds of this year's championship.
Lowdon said: "We've got two very experienced drivers in Checo Perez and Valtteri Bottas.
"They're both drivers that I've known for a long time and so, when we were putting the team together, it made perfect sense to get drivers who really knew what they were doing and had also a lot of experience working at championship level."
The 2026 season sees a brand new set of regulations in F1, so is that an advantage or a disadvantage for a team like Cadillac, the first brand new team in 10 years?
"It's actually a little bit of both," he said.
"There is the advantage that it's a new challenge for everybody. The disadvantage is, as a new team, we're not sure what we're aiming at."
As far as the team's prospects, Lowdon is grounded
"Until the lights change in Melbourne and the cars set off, actually nobody knows where they're going to be competitively, and that's one of the great things about sport.
"We're going to be competing against Ferrari, McLaren, Red Bull. These are teams that have been operating for decades. It's not a case of just turning up and immediately blowing everyone away."
