Cadillac Hits Reset: Bold Move or Midseason Panic?

Cadillac entered Formula One in 2026 knowing its first season would be difficult. As we wrote before its debut, simply creating an entirely new F1 team, hiring hundreds of people and putting two cars on the grid was an enormous undertaking.

Eleven races later, Cadillac remains the only team without a championship point. Reliability problems — particularly chronic brake overheating — have repeatedly interrupted progress, and Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have yet to drag the MAC-26 consistently into the midfield fight. Still, there have been encouraging signs that Cadillac is gradually closing the gap.

But apparently, gradual wasn’t fast enough.

During the summer break Cadillac abruptly dismissed founding team principal Graeme Lowdon and replaced him with former Renault and Alpine executive Marcin Budkowski. Cadillac described the move as a “planned leadership transition,” suggesting Lowdon had completed the team’s construction phase and Budkowski would guide the next stage.

The reality appears somewhat less tidy.

Cadillac CEO Dan Towriss acknowledged that Lowdon was informed of the decision the morning it was announced and made clear that the departure was not mutual. Towriss said Cadillac had begun reconsidering its leadership structure only a few months earlier.

That feels harsh.

Lowdon helped take Cadillac from an ambitious proposal to an actual Formula One team. He recruited personnel, helped construct the organization and ultimately put two cars on the Australian Grand Prix grid. F1’s own analysis credited the new team with earning considerable respect in the paddock for how prepared it was at the beginning of the season.

Nobody seriously expected Cadillac to challenge Mercedes six months after opening the doors.

So is changing the team principal after only half a season a sign of ambition — or desperation?

The answer may be a little of both.

Cadillac clearly isn’t satisfied merely to participate, and the recurring reliability problems are legitimate concerns. A well-funded General Motors-backed project cannot indefinitely celebrate finishing races as though completing a Grand Prix is itself a podium.

But replacing Lowdon now carries risk. Budkowski was not already embedded within Cadillac. He must get to know the people, culture and technical organization while the season is already underway. It’s unusual to change captains when the ship has only recently left the harbor.

There is, however, a compelling case for Budkowski.

An engineer and aerodynamicist by training, he spent six seasons at Ferrari, winning three Drivers’ and three Constructors’ Championships. Then, in 2008, he joined McLaren, helping Lewis Hamilton win his first World Championship that year. Budkowsi was eventually named McLaren’s Head of Aerodynamics in 2012. He later worked in the FIA’s technical and sporting departments before joining Renault and eventually becoming Alpine’s Executive Director.

Importantly, Budkowski departed Alpine in early 2022 before Otmar Szafnauer became team principal and before the infamous Oscar Piastri contract debacle. That distinction matters. The managerial turmoil that subsequently engulfed Alpine — including Szafnauer’s dismissal and repeated leadership changes — cannot fairly be placed at Budkowski’s feet. In fact, his departure was the first in what became a remarkably long parade of senior executives leaving Enstone.

That makes Cadillac’s gamble easier to understand.

Budkowski has seen championship organizations from the engineering room, the aerodynamic department, the FIA and senior management. Cadillac may believe it now needs less of a team-builder and more of someone who can examine why the race car isn’t working and force technical departments to work more effectively together.

Still, Lowdon deserved better than discovering on Wednesday morning that the team he helped create no longer wanted him running it.

For Cadillac, this looks like the first genuinely controversial decision of its Formula One life.

If Budkowski improves reliability, pushes the MAC-26 toward Q2 and helps Cadillac score its first points, the move may eventually look ruthless, but inspired.

If little changes, Cadillac will instead have fired a respected leader halfway through its first season for problems that were entirely predictable for a brand-new team.

For now, the verdict is incomplete.

Cadillac might be panicking.

Cadillac might also have recognized sooner than expected that the person best suited to build an F1 team isn’t necessarily the person best suited to make it fast.

We’ll be watching.

And Marcin Budkowski has just inherited perhaps the most American assignment imaginable: take something expensive, complicated and slightly overheated — and make it go faster.