Lowdon on what’s next for Cadillac after short F1 honeymoon

Cadillac’s rocky road to an eventually accepted Formula 1 entry has been well documented, but it is hard to underestimate the challenge the series’ first bona fide start-up team in a decade has faced as it rapidly built up its workforce across its UK headquarters in Silverstone and its various US bases.

Appreciating the challenge of taking on F1’s establishment, the team co-owned by Cadillac parent company General Motors is aiming for respectability in year one, and it has gone some way towards achieving that. Valtteri Bottas retired from the race early on due to a steering wheel issue, which the team believes was outside its control, but Sergio Perez made it to the finish on Cadillac’s F1 debut.

Speaking exclusively to Autosport, team principal Graeme Lowdon said the team could be satisfied with how its debut went, with the issues plaguing some of the well-established teams showing just how difficult the 2026 regulations have been to get right.

“We’ve seen again, it’s not easy. There were a few people who didn’t even take the start,” Lowdon said. “With Valtteri it was a real shame actually because clearly there’s a steering wheel problem and that’s extremely frustrating, because we don’t make steering wheels. With Checo we decided to go from a one-stop strategy to a two because we might as well, there was no threat from behind by that stage.

“It was a really good stop actually. I’m not sure exactly what the stop time was, but it was two point something. So, that was really good for the guys as well. So, yeah, a lot of confidence going forward into next weekend and I think a platform that we can genuinely build upon there.”

Conducting its first competition pitstops was just one part of Cadillac’s steep learning curve. Melbourne’s Friday practice was the first time Cadillac had run two cars simultaneously, while the race stints Perez did on Sunday were by far the team’s longest.

“We got so much extra data,” Lowdon said. “It would have been absolutely great to get both cars back, primarily for both drivers, but also for the team and the amount of information we could get. But again, I think for a first ever grand prix, just getting one of these super complex machines home is a great result.”

In the build-up to its FF1 debut Lowdon had heavily invested in the team’s so-called “race ready” programme, an extremely life-like shadow programme simulating 2025 grands prix from Silverstone and Charlotte bases, following an imaginary grand prix weekend schedule. Activities ranged from making real-time strategy calls and practicing communications to even simulating drivers being unavailable for the engineers at certain times because of media and marketing commitments.

Reflecting on that programme now, Lowdon is even more convinced it was the right approach. “In fact, I would go even further and say without that, it would have been incredibly difficult to even try and finish,” he added. “There was a lot going on. When we had the steering wheel issues on Valtteri’s car, it was around about the same sort of time we were thinking about a pitstop, so there was a lot for everybody to process and a lot of decision making. And if we hadn’t gone through all of those race simulations that we did, it would have been way, way harder.

“The cool thing is that when you’re hearing a voice on the intercom, you have no idea if it’s in Charlotte or in Silverstone or in the back office here. It’s exactly how we want it. It’s just everybody working together.”

But as proud as Cadillac and GM are about clearing their first hurdle, they also didn’t arrive in F1 to make up the numbers. After an F1 honeymoon that lasted all of 72 hours over the Melbourne weekend, the focus is now on adding much-needed performance and bringing both cars to the finish line.

A bullish Perez said as much on Thursday in China, as being three to four seconds off the pace and finishing three laps down is going to grow stale very soon. Cadillac signed off on its Australia aero package relatively early, but is bullish abouts its capacity to bring upgrades at a steady rate.

Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

“Let’s say that the first objective is done. And now it’s all about reducing that gap race by race,” the Mexican F1 returnee said. “This car was done a long time ago and it’s very basic. They had to sign it off very early, so we knew that the start was always going to be difficult.

“But I think we have all the resources and very experienced people in place, so I would be very surprised if we are not able to develop in the next few months.”

At this early stage of the brand-new 2026 regulations, Cadillac won’t be the only team that will find rich veins of aero development to pursue. But Lowdon vowed there was a “route map” to adding performance to the Ferrari-engined MAC-26 over the coming months.

“Obviously we want to get both cars home next, and start adding the pace,” he concluded. “I think we can see a route map to that. It’s not something that you can do overnight, because obviously everybody else is developing as well. But it is something that I genuinely believe we will get there and we’ll start closing in.”

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