Cadillac dropped its F1 team principal with a single morning's notice
Cadillac has removed the team principal who secured its place on the Formula 1 grid.
Graeme Lowdon is out as Cadillac's Formula 1 team principal, and Marcin Budkowski is in, effective from the Dutch Grand Prix. The change was announced on Wednesday during Formula 1's summer break, and according to multiple reports, Lowdon learned of it only hours before it became public. Team CEO Dan Towriss made the call unilaterally.
A change Cadillac insists it was already planning
Towriss described the move as part of a long-standing plan rather than a reaction to results, saying the organisation is evolving “from its initial build phase into the next stage of racing performance.” He also acknowledged the timing had moved up, noting there was “an opportunity to build something new and innovative” and that “the time for that change came sooner than was expected.” On Lowdon himself, Towriss added: “His contributions helped establish a strong foundation in our build-up phase, and we thank him for his commitment and wish him well.”
The man leaving built this team from nothing
Lowdon, 61, has been Cadillac's team principal since December 2024 and was central to the process of actually getting the team onto the grid, from securing entry rights to building the organisation from scratch. He previously ran the now-defunct Manor team, giving him direct experience of what a fragile new F1 entry actually needs. That history is what makes the abruptness of his departure so notable: the person who built the foundation will not see the team through what Cadillac itself calls the next stage.
Budkowski brings two decades of paddock experience
Budkowski, 49, is not a newcomer to Formula 1's politics or its technical departments. He started at Prost in 2001, before spells at Ferrari between 2002 and 2007 and McLaren between 2007 and 2014, then moved into a technical coordinator role at the FIA. From 2017 to 2022, he was executive director at Renault, later Alpine, where he oversaw an organisation that included Esteban Ocon's win at the 2021 Hungarian Grand Prix. He left Alpine during a leadership overhaul and has worked as a television analyst on Polish F1 broadcasts since. He officially takes over at Cadillac from the Dutch Grand Prix.
The stated reasons go beyond the results sheet
According to reporting around the change, Cadillac's ownership believes the team has been held back less by pace than by structure. Sources describe internal communication gaps and departmental silos as part of the problem, along with a broader sense that the team has not made full use of the resources available to it as a General Motors-backed operation, including the manufacturer's artificial intelligence tools. Budkowski is also expected to have a more active hand in shaping the 2027 car, the first under Formula 1's next technical rules cycle, and to help steer the team toward a more US-centric structure while keeping its UK operational base.
A debut season that has not delivered points
Cadillac's first Formula 1 season has been competitive by rookie-team standards but has not yet produced a points finish for drivers Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas in the Ferrari-powered MAC-26. Reports differ on how serious the shortfall actually is, with some describing the campaign as encouraging for a first-year team and others as a persistent technical struggle, but the shared thread is that progress has stalled since the opening races. The timing also lines up with rival teams preparing significant upgrades heading into the second half of the season, upgrades Cadillac's current in-season plan was not built to match.
AutoNext Take
Removing the person who built your team, mid-season, with a single morning's warning, does not read like a plan that had been quietly sitting on a shelf. It reads like patience running out faster than anyone at Cadillac wants to admit publicly.
That does not make it the wrong call. Grid entries are hard to win and harder to build into functioning organisations, and Lowdon's job, securing the slot and standing up an operation from nothing, is genuinely a different skill set from running a team that needs to close a technical gap under a new set of engine rules in 2027. Budkowski has done exactly that kind of work before, at Renault and Alpine, and he knows what a silo looks like from the inside because he has dismantled a few.
What is harder to buy is the framing. Calling this a long-planned transition, then admitting in the same breath that it arrived earlier than intended, is the corporate version of having it both ways. Either the timeline moved because something forced it to, or it did not. Towriss cannot really claim both.
The more interesting story here is not Lowdon or Budkowski individually, it is what this says about how GM and its partners are prepared to run this project. A brand-new F1 team is meant to be judged over several seasons, not one. Pulling the leadership lever this early, before Cadillac has even reached its first proper development cycle, suggests an ownership group with far less tolerance for a slow build than the standard playbook usually allows.
Budkowski now inherits a team with real resources, a Ferrari power unit, and a 2027 rulebook to prepare for, but also a paddock watching to see whether Cadillac's patience for the next leader lasts any longer than it did for the last one.
