The man tasked with being Cadillac F1 Team’s boss for its Formula 1 team has said the sport’s cost cap will give the team a platform on which it can build success.
Graeme Lowdon is the man to step into the role of Team Principal, officially so now the team has been named as the 11th team on the grid from next season after formal approval.
Lowdon was previously CEO of the Virgin Racing team, which entered F1 in 2010. Developed by Manor Motorsport and backed by Sir Richard Branson, the team transitioned into various guises under the Marussia banner before entering under Manor Racing, the outfit folding shortly after the end of the 2016 season, a year after Lowdon resigned.
The team were perennial back markers in its short time on the F1 grid, largely due to the then-nascent ideas on the cost cap.
Entering on the proviso such a rule would be in place, Virgin, along with other new teams – Lotus and HRT – were offered allowances on other rules if the cap was met.
As the cost cap was never brought in, all three teams struggled and disappeared off the grid.
Lowdon cited the cost cap, which eventually came into effect in 2021, as a key reason why he is confident Cadillac will not suffer a similar fate.
“The last time I was involved in bringing a new team in the goalposts changed hugely,” he said. “It’s a matter of history now what [we] went through.
“If you remember back to 2009, the battles to try and get something very odd back then called a ‘cost cap’, apparently just became an absolute impossibility and yet now it’s seen as a very positive thing within the sport by all the teams. So there’s been a significant change in the landscape of how you bring in a team.”
Symonds and other key Cadillac staff further underlines Lowdon’s confidence
Lowdon also cited the already-glowing crop of personnel within Cadillac as another reason to be optimistic, one key player being Pat Symonds, who was up until last year, F1’s Chief Technical Officer, giving him a plethora of knowledge on the upcoming 2026 regulations.
“[There are] Very experienced people are on board like Nick Chester, Pat Symonds, and on the commercial side Caroline McGrory.
“These are people who’ve spent decades in Formula 1.
“Pat’s an incredibly valuable addition to anybody’s team. It’s less that he was involved in the rules, it’s just he’s Pat Symonds and he knows what he’s doing and he’s got vast experience.
“I’ve been racing with him before so it wasn’t a difficult decision for me to look to go racing with Pat again because I know what he can do.
“Is it helpful that he understands the rule set? Yes, but I think that’s outweighed by just the fact that he’s good at what he does.”
Lowdon also said that whilst just “getting on the grid” is an initial goal, and that they are “very active” in the wind tunnel already, the “ambition […] is limitless,” however tempered this with further realism.
“Just being part of Formula 1 is not the objective,” he added. “We do want to be a meaningful part of the competition, but we recognise that that can take time.”
READ MORE – Cadillac formally approved as 11th F1 team for 2026
