Why ‘the car doesn’t matter’ as Cadillac’s F1 2025 test plans take shape

Cadillac boss Graeme Lowdon has said the specifics of carrying out some testing before year’s end aren’t important, as what matters is simply getting out on track.

Rumours have swirled in recent months that Cadillac is hoping to carry out a private test under TPC (Testing of a Previous Car) regulations, utilising another team’s car, and Lowdon has confirmed there is intent to carry out some testing before the end of 2025.

Graeme Lowdon: The car we use for testing isn’t important

TPC rules allow for private testing time for a competitor using cars designed and constructed to comply with the technical regulations of any of the three calendar years prior to the year of the current championship.

Put simply, for Cadillac, a TPC outing in 2025 would require a car from 2022, ’23, or ’24, but, of course, as a new constructor from next year, the American squad doesn’t have a car yet.

The regulations do allow for a competitor to use a suitable car from a rival team, provided there is prior authorisation from the FIA.

With Valtteri Bottas under contract at Mercedes, it’s likely that Sergio Perez would be the driver entrusted with any such test outings arranged, but, for now, it’s not clear what car Cadillac could use.

PlanetF1.com understands from sources close to the situation that Cadillac is close to firming up its test plans, with a car secured for an outing before the end of this year, although whether this is a TPC arrangement with another team or simply using a lower category car isn’t yet clarified.

However, in Lowdon’s eyes, the car itself is inconsequential – the purpose of such a test is merely to allow the new employees and trackside teams of the squad to start gelling together, and get familiar with all the systems and procedures before embarking on a competitive racing season.

“We don’t have a previous car. The car isn’t actually important,” Lowdon explained on the Beyond The Grid podcast, when asked about the TPC rumours.

“We’re not looking to do this test to engineer something, which is what a lot of the other teams are looking to do at the minute.

“We want the mechanics to get used to regain that muscle memory of working with a live car, it doesn’t have to be a Formula 1 car. It’s good if it is.”

Cars older than the TPC regulations can also be used under Testing of Historic Cars (THC) regulations, and Lowdon said this could be an option.

“If a car reaches a certain age, it’s no longer a previous car, it becomes a historic car. So we could be doing some THC testing, or whatever,” he said.

“The reality is, I wouldn’t get too hung up on whether it’s TPC, THC, whatever, or even whether it’s an F1 car.

“What we want is an environment where the mechanics get used to each other, and learn everyone’s way of doing things”.

While Cadillac’s primary headquarters is in Charlotte, North Carolina, the squad also has established a headquarters at Silverstone, but Lowdon said such a test doesn’t necessarily have to happen so close to home.

“It’ll depend on the location of whichever cars we’re using because, again, the location doesn’t matter. It could be anywhere,” he said.

“It could be a place in Europe, it could be in Spain, it could be in Italy. The location doesn’t really matter.

“Ideally, we’d prefer stable weather, but yeah, it doesn’t really matter. The main thing is that everyone is together, learning to work together.”

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Cadillac’s race simulation preparations revealed

While the quest right now is to secure a car to carry out a real-world test, Cadillac has begun race weekend simulations with its ever-growing workforce.

This involves having its race staff working and reacting to the real timing and events of a Grand Prix weekend, in order to gain a better understanding of the structure of a competition and how to respond to eventualities.

With Lowdon referring to the Monza weekend, he explained how Cadillac’s simulation is being carried out in tandem with the Grand Prix.

“We have an ops room in Silverstone. We have an ops room like a mission control,” he said.

“So we’ve got 60, 70 engineers running this entire race weekend exactly as it would be as if we were competing, except our car isn’t on the tarmac here in Monza. It’s in the simulator in Charlotte.

“But every single session, we even simulate the media sessions here, so that the drivers are not available for that period of time.

“Basically, we want to be in a position that, when we hit the tarmac in Melbourne, we don’t have people introducing themselves to each other and saying, ‘Oh, hello, nice to be in a new team’.

“Everything’s got to be up to speed. So we have this programme called Race Ready, and it involves all sorts of simulations.

“We have massive respect for the teams that we’re going to race against. They’re hugely skilled, hugely competitive. And, partly, the way of showing our respect is the amount of effort we’re trying to put in to make sure that we want to compete with them, and so that’s part of what we’re doing.”

A benefit of carrying out these simulations has already been felt, with Lowdon explaining how radio protocols have been put in place to create uniformity across the squad.

“The first simulated race weekend we did was Barcelona,” he said.

“I took part in the virtual pit wall, and it was just so interesting listening to the different voices and getting used to them. It’s all different from the previous team I’d been with.

“You could actually tell where some of these people had raced because they have different radio protocols, and this, that, and the other, and now we’ve done a lot of work to get everybody on the same language set and communicating in the same way.

“The test days that we will do are less to do with learning anything about a car – and we can’t anyway, the regulations are so different next year – it’s just about getting the race team themselves up to speed, and even just putting all the infrastructure in place, the pit stop stuff, and all the stuff in the garage and everything.

“We do not want to get to Melbourne and for there to be a first time anything there for anything other than the race.”

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