Cadillac has limitless ambitions about what it can achieved in both its debut season and long-term in Formula 1, given the resources at its disposal.
The F1 grid will expand to 11 teams in 2026 with the arrival of Cadillac, with the American team becoming the first completely new addition in a decade. Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon says the starting point for the team is more difficult to know due to the new regulations that are coming into force, but that it has no limit on what it can aim to achieve.
“It’s impossible at the minute to predict anything championship-wise next year,” Lowdon said. “The same for anybody up and down [the grid] – I think absolutely nobody knows where they’re going to be next year. And if they do, then they’re making it up! Because none of us know where we’re going to be.
“We’ve got some obvious targets for next year. We have to have everything ready. All that kind of thing. But that’s really secondary to – we’ll be measuring, all the things that we’re in control of, how do we execute those? That’s the key thing for next year. How do we operate? And the envelope of performance that we have defined for us next year, how much will we extract from that?
“With the backing that we have, both financially and in terms of technology and vision and everything else, we’ve said before that our ambitions are limitless. And they should be.
“We’ll be in a position to operate at the cost cap. So irrelevant of where we start next year, we want to move forward and develop in a constructive way. And I know every team will say that, but that is the reality. We are set up with that bold ambition in mind.
“I know how difficult Formula 1 is. You can’t just turn up and beat teams that have been doing it for years and years. These teams are extremely good at what they do. And we have a huge respect for them.
“But we’re hiring good people. And if we operate well, then we’ll build a good team as well. And that adds to the competition. It’s very clear the way we’re structured, we’re not just here to tag along. We’re here to really try and build a successful Formula 1 team. And that’s my objective.”
Cadillac F1 and TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss agrees with Lowdon’s assessment, saying the team matches Audi’s timeline of seeing a championship fight possible by the time the project is five years old.
“I think five years is the right time horizon where you want to be in that position to be competing for podiums and wins, and the chance for a world championship,” Towriss said.
“Whether it’s with a Cadillac engine or a Ferrari engine, from that standpoint, it’s obviously just the development of the car and what the team is able to do. I think that’s a timeline where we want to be up there.
“The most honest answer is we just don’t know [where Cadillac will start 2026]. I see a glimmer in some folks’ eyes as we think about how things are coming together, where are we at from an aero standpoint, a weight standpoint, some of the upcoming testing and so forth.
“But everyone else’s tools should be more accurate than ours. They’ve been on the road for a long time. They’ve had real data to be calibrated to all the models. But at the same time, we’ve hired a lot of really smart, really experienced Formula 1 people and we’ll see what happens.
“Really it’s what’s the rate of improvement from that standpoint as we start to have data, on track data, and our ability to bring updates to track. I think that’s something we’ve been thinking about for a while. A lot of experienced Formula 1 people, they’ve been with other teams. Now you have a blank sheet of paper – we can build this team any way you want.
“And so that ability to get updates to the track, what’s our strategy for that? And so really it’s our rate of improvement is the real measure of what this team is going to be able to do.
