Cadillac hasn't finished a full season in Formula 1 yet, and it has already changed team principals.
Graeme Lowdon, the man who had run the operation since 2024, is out effective immediately, with former Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski taking over.
Lowdon was appointed team principal well before Cadillac's cars ever turned a wheel, working alongside TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss to secure the automaker's 2026 grid slot and stand up the moving parts of the organization from scratch. During his media availability, Towriss said the team needed a different type of leadership for "a new phase," but admitted the leadership change has come earlier than expected.
Cadillac stressed that the change was a "planned transition," and communications contacts within General Motors tell me the pieces of the plan had been coming together for at least a week before yesterday's announcement.
"Graeme and I always talked about that there would be a transition at some point," Towriss said. "This decision was mine. And I think there's a very narrow window of opportunity.
"When you look at what we're building, there is an opportunity to build something new and innovative. What I didn't want to do was to build something that's already been done, something that's old and then try to improve it. So I think that the time for that change came sooner than was expected."
So, yes, replacing the team boss was part of the plan all along, but it wasn't supposed to be this early in the team's first campaign. Neither of the team's drivers, Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, has scored a single point this season. The cars have also battled a chronic brake problem, with the brakes overheating or catching on fire during races, severely limiting the car's accumulated mileage, a cardinal sin during the learning phase of a new team.
Budkowski arrives at Cadillac with an impressive F1 resume-he served as executive director at Alpine until 2022 and before that he worked as an aerodynamicist at Prost, Ferrari and McLaren before leading the FIA's F1 technical department.
It's believed that TWG is looking to Budkowski to better integrate artificial intelligence tools that GM has. This ties into the team's rumored pivot away from its established base in Silverstone, UK, to a new headquarters in Fishers, Indiana. Unconfirmed reports going around allege that Cadillac has told F1 staff in Silverstone that they must relocate to the Midwest or find another job entirely.
GM believes that Cadillac F1 has left potential on the table during these early days. Budkowski's immediate tasks will be improving the performance of the 2026 car and curing the reliability issues while working toward 2027 and extracting more from what the American automaker has to offer.
It's a tumultuous time for the team in other aspects as well. Mark Walter-principal owner of the team's parent organization, TWG Global-is currently under federal investigation for financial improprieties by the FBI and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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