Cadillac counts down to its F1 debut with lessons from NASA and the 'inverse Ted Lasso'

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. “It’s 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 Cadillac's 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.

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 sport's complex process for approving new teams, Lowdon says he's worked hard to adapt to U.S. racing culture for a team which will build its cars out of Fishers, Indiana.

There's 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."

Past attempts to operate an F1 team outside of the sport's 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.”

F1’s 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.

While existing teams have their race drivers heavily involved in the design of 2026 cars, Lowdon said the fact that Cadillac hasn't confirmed who its drivers will be shouldn't be seen as a setback.

There are “three or four” names on Cadillac's shortlist halfway through the 2025 season and Lowdon says Cadillac has more leverage in contract discussions than usual.

“Because we’re out of sync with the other teams, we’re 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 don’t 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. There's 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.

“I’ve known him for a long time. I know his sense of humor, I appreciate his sense of humor and he’s got a big fan following,” Lowdon said. “My phone got super busy almost immediately when (Cadillac’s 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.”

AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing

Graeme Lowdon, the team principal of the new Formula One team Cadillac, talks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Silverstone racetrack, ahead of the British Formula One Grand Prix, in Silverstone, England, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Graeme Lowdon, the team principal of the new Formula One team Cadillac, talks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Silverstone racetrack, ahead of the British Formula One Grand Prix, in Silverstone, England, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Graeme Lowdon, the team principal of the new Formula One team Cadillac, talks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Silverstone racetrack, ahead of the British Formula One Grand Prix, in Silverstone, England, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

Graeme Lowdon, the team principal of the new Formula One team Cadillac, talks to The Associated Press during an interview at the Silverstone racetrack, ahead of the British Formula One Grand Prix, in Silverstone, England, Sunday, July 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)

MOSCOW (AP) — The young journalist in a red bow tie stood during President Vladimir Putin's annual news conference Friday and displayed a sign saying he wanted to get married. But his main question wasn't directed at Putin — it was to his girlfriend, Olga, proposing marriage.

Putin complimented Kirill Bazhanov of Yekaterinburg’s Channel 4 on his snazzy tie, saying, "You’re ready to go to the registry office!” Bazhanov told Putin “we’d be very glad to see you at the wedding.”

The Russian leader’s year-end media session had serious questions, of course, about late pension payments, construction projects gone wrong, and the fighting in Ukraine, where Putin sent troops nearly four years ago.

But every year — amid the weighty questions from the domestic and international media — there are also odd and lighter moments, like this year when people asked Putin what his license plate number was and whether love at first sight existed.

It’s all part of the spectacle of the tightly orchestrated event — an opportunity for Putin, who has ruled Russia fore 25 years, to expound on a wide array of subjects as well as to burnish his image as a fatherly figure to address the concerns of ordinary Russians who submit questions in advance.

Bazhanov did actually have a question for Putin — about greater support for young families. Later in the 4 1/2-hour news conference, one of the anchors passed along the news that Bazhanov's girlfriend had said yes. Putin promptly quipped about collecting money for the wedding.

For those inside Moscow’s Gostinny Dvor amphitheater, the most important task was to get Putin's attention. Most brought signs and some wore national dress. One reporter brought a clutch of Labubu dolls personalized to look like Russian officials and one in the form of U.S. President Donald Trump.

One reporter asked whether a comet approaching Earth could be a UFO, and reassured Putin that the city of Tyumen would be ready to welcome any extraterrestrial guests.

Putin seemed unfazed throughout, although Tajik journalist Shamsudin Boboyev caused a brief commotion when he tried to give Putin a book. Two security officials quickly stopped him from going onstage, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov suggested Boboyev should simply describe the gift, which would be given to him later.

Toward the end of the session, a journalist who noted that Putin had said earlier he believed in love at first sight asked him if he was in love. The Russian leader, whose private life remains closely guarded, answered simply, “Yes.”

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Davies reported from Manchester, England.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, thanks a group of volunteers who worked preparing his call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, thanks a group of volunteers who worked preparing his call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

A TV assistant attaches a microphone to Russian President Vladimir Putin's suit prior to his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/Pavel Bednyakov)

Russian President Vladimir Putin listens to a journalist's question during his annual news conference and call-in show at Gostinny Dvor, in Moscow, on Friday, Dec. 19, 2025. (Alexander Kazakov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)