Marcin Budkowski, the new head of Cadillac in Formula 1, pointed out what his first priority will be after joining the team replacing Graeme Lowdon.
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Lowdon, who started the 2026 season as the leader of the American team and responsible for launching the team, was dismissed by CEO Dan Towriss on August 12, with the former Alpine technical chief taking over the position.
With 11 rounds contested so far, Cadillac has yet to score any points, facing reliability issues and problems such as brake overheating. Now, Budkowski stated that his first mission is to listen and observe at the factory to identify the issues.
“My first priority will be to listen, honestly, listen and observe at the factory, because I need to get to know the people. I need to understand how they work, how they collaborate with each other, and how the various individuals and departments interact. But based on my experience in F1, I know that when a team faces reliability problems, as happened with Cadillac in the first half of the season, there is a great risk of creating a disconnect between track operations and the factory; and this link needs to be very strong in any Formula 1 team,” he said.
“This bond needs to be very strong; therefore, I will split 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 believe these will be the short-term priorities: listen, observe, and ensure that both parts operate as a single team,” he continued.
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“When we have 24 races, the factory people and the track people do not see each other often, and this often causes problems. When F1 had 16 races and much smaller teams, people spent a lot of time together at the factory. Nowadays it is no longer like that, and I think this connection is fundamental, especially in the short term.”
“As for the races still remaining this season — and there are several — the focus will be to thoroughly analyze the organization, processes, and tools: what we already have, what we are building, and what we need. I believe General Motors has a lot to offer, as it has vast technical expertise and resources that, it seems, have not yet been fully utilized,” he added.
“I think, understandably, we are talking about a team that had only a few months to be created from scratch, build a race car, and go to the track to compete. There is a lot of technical expertise in the USA. After all, they are sending spacecraft to Mars. But I believe there is still much more to be leveraged on the American side. It will not be immediate; it will take some time. However, I think it would be foolish not to take into account the talent and technical expertise we also have on the other side of the Atlantic,” he concluded.
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