Cadillac F1 team principal Graeme Lowdon says the GM-backed newcomer’s 2026 debut will focus on executing well and earning respect rather than expecting instant success

Graeme Lowdon, Cadillac F1 team principal

Graeme Lowdon, Cadillac F1 team principal

Photo by: Cadillac Communications

Cadillac Formula 1 team principal Graeme Lowdon has detailed the team’s realistic goals and expectations for its debut season in the championship in 2026.

The American outfit will become the first new team to join the series since Haas joined in 2016, owned by Gene Haas and led at the time by team chief Guenther Steiner.

Backed by General Motors, Cadillac is unsurprisingly heading into F1 with hopes of winning races, but Lowdon acknowledged that the grid is “unbelievably competitive”.

“The first thing to recognise is this game is unbelievably competitive,” Lowdon explained to F1.com. “I’ve often said Formula 1 is actually a very simple business model and a very simple technical model actually because you download it.

“Anyone watching at home can download all of the regulations off the internet. But there lies the problem. You have 11 teams, previously 10 teams, competing on exactly the same set of regulations.

“They can’t invent a different kind of car or anything else. The regulations are super tight and so the competition is absolutely insane and intense and we have to recognise that.

“I guess the way I try and communicate to other people is, imagine if you’re one of these existing teams, all of them have been doing this for at least 10 years, if not significantly longer.

Cadillac Formula 1 Team Simulating a race weekend in preparation for 2026

“If a new team were to come in and immediately be competitive against them, then you’d be pretty upset and pretty angry. And so, we know it’s a huge challenge. It’s very difficult to quantify what success can look like other than we just have to execute as well as we possibly can and gain respect from the other competitors.

“I think that’s always the first target because, if we do that, then we know that we will be doing a good job.”

Cadillac is set to enter F1 at the turn of the regulations, meaning it’s incredibly difficult to predict the order of the field in 2026.