New Cadillac F1 boss names 'first priority' after Graeme Lowdon sacking

New Cadillac F1 team principal Marcin Budkowski has named his "first priority" after joining the team after the dismissal of Graeme Lowdon. 

Lowdon, who was named as Cadillac team principal and responsible for launching the team and getting onto the grid, was let go by CEO Dan Towriss on August 12th, with former Alpine technical chief Budkowski appointed as his replacement. 

From its first 11 races, Cadillac is yet to score a point, the only team which has not done so in the 2026 season, although Sergio Perez was briefly awarded 10th in Monaco but was stripped of the single point after a penalty for a start infringement. 

The team has been hit with reliability concerns throughout the first 11 races, with overheating brakes a common problem across both Perez and Valtteri Bottas's cars, as well as suspension issues, with both problems taking out Perez (suspension) and Bottas (brakes) in the final race before the summer break in Hungary. 

With Budkowski set to assume his duties ahead of the season resumption at the Dutch GP, the Pole has explained that his "first priority" is to "listen and observe" at the factory and try to avoid a "disconnect" between the trackside operations personnel and those who are factory-based.

"My first priority is going to be to listen, honestly, listen and observe in the factory because I need to meet the people. I need to understand how they work, how they work together, how the various individuals and departments first work together," Budkowski told media, including RacingNews365. 

"But throughout my F1 experience, I know that when a team is suffering reliability issues, as Cadillac had during the first half of the season, it's a huge risk of creating a disconnect between the trackside operations and the factory, and that needs to be very, very strong in any Formula One team. 

"That link needs to be very, very strong, so that's why I will share my first week between the factory and the track in Zandvoort because I want to see both sides of the team and how they work together.

"I think that's going to be the short-term priorities: Listen, observe, and make sure the two entities are one team. 

"When we have 24 races, the people from the factory and the people from the track don't see each other very often, and that's often an issue. When we had 16 races in F1, and we had much smaller teams, then people would spend a lot of time together at the factory. That's not the case anymore, and I think that connection is very, very important, especially in the short term. 

"In the races, we still have to compete in this year, and there are quite a few, then it's going to be looking depth at the organisation, at the processes, at our tools, what we have, what we're still building, what we need, and I think General Motors has a lot to offer because there's a huge depth of technical expertise and tools there that doesn't feel like it's been completely used yet. 

"I think, understandably, we're talking about a team who had a few months to be built from the ground up and put a race car together and go racing with it. 

"There's a lot of technical expertise in the US. I mean, these guys are sending spaceships to Mars in the future. But I think there's a lot more to leverage there on the US side. It's not going to be immediate. It's going to take some time. 

"But I think it would be foolish not to look at the talent and the technical expertise that we have on the other side of the pond as well."