Graeme Lowdon’s departure from the command of Cadillac highlighted the team’s rate of evolution in its debut season in Formula 1. An analysis of the first eleven GPs held this year shows that qualifying session performance improved slightly, but race pace showed an opposite trend.
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Cadillac CEO Dan Towriss stated that the replacement of Lowdon by Marcin Budkowski happened earlier than planned, although the relationship between him and Lowdon ended amicably. According to Towriss, the team needed a clearer vision for the future and also an evolution compatible with the owners’ ambitions, in this case General Motors (GM).
“It’s really about having a clear vision of what we are building for the future, the pace of progress, and ensuring that it matches the owners’ ambitions,” said Towriss. To evaluate this argument, the best times in qualifying sessions and race paces of Cadillac were compared with the leaders of the first eleven stages of the season.
The team started the year in Australia 5.21% behind the pole in qualifying and 5.43% away from the best race pace. In the first six stages, between Australia and Monaco, the average qualifying deficit was 4.75%, while the race pace was 4.10% behind the benchmark.
In the next five stages, from Barcelona to Hungary, Cadillac reduced its average qualifying deficit to 4.02%. However, the progress was not repeated in races, with the difference increasing to 4.56%. The Austrian stage was not included in the comparison because both cars retired after a few laps due to a brake problem.
Some specific results indicated progress, such as the deficit of only 3.32% to pole at the Belgian GP and the race pace 3.29% lower than the best recorded at the British GP. Still, the analysis points out that these results did not form a consistent trend. The contrast with Aston Martin was also considered significant, as the team would have reduced its deficit by almost half after a single update, while Cadillac’s changes did not produce a similar gain.
In this scenario, the analysis considers the decision to turn to Budkowski to replace Lowdon understandable, given the need to increase the team’s development pace as quickly as possible.
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