Off track, the numbers are adding up for F1 newcomers Cadillac

LONDON, Jan 25 : Formula One newcomers Cadillac had hoped to be a team everybody would want to join, but even they have been surprised by the response.

The staff numbers, as the General Motors-backed outfit prepare to take to the track with rivals for the first time in a shakedown test at Barcelona's Circuit de Catalunya from Monday, are adding up.

Principal Graeme Lowdon told Reuters the team, with a British base at Silverstone circuit, had advertised 595 positions with a target of filling 525 by the end of December last year.

"In that time we had 143,265 applications, all of which had to be acknowledged," he said at last week's Autosport Business Exchange conference.

"Then I think we shortlisted 9,051 and interviewed around about 6,500...and then we had actually hired 520 by the end of the year. 

"Obviously, that number's gone up already. But yeah, the people side of it is enormous. But the interest is enormous too."

Cadillac secured approval in March last year, after initial opposition from rival teams and a 764-day entry process supported by the governing FIA, to become the 11th outfit on the starting grid.

Until March they were not allowed to use "Formula One" in recruitment adverts, for commercial rights reasons, so they had to be for positions available in "top tier motorsport".

Two of the recruits are race drivers Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, the Mexican and Finn both winners boasting years of experience.

Others, the vast majority, have come from rival teams.

MORE EXPANSION TO COME  

Cadillac intend to grow ultimately to a headcount of more than 1,000, a number competitive with leading teams, and have a manufacturing headquarters under construction in Indianapolis.

Lowdon said staff, many of whom he had worked with