(Motorsport-Total.com) – When the starting lights in Melbourne turn green, all teams dream of great success: victories, podium finishes, at least solid points. For the established racing teams, this is a realistic ambition, but for newcomer Cadillac, on the other hand, the unknowns prevail.
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What can be expected from the completely newly built US project this season? And above all: What would be a success for the team around team principal Graeme Lowdon and drivers Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas that could be recorded as such both internally and externally?
A look at history shows how demanding the mission is: In the 2010s, several new teams joined the grid at once with Lotus/Caterham, Virgin/Marussia/Manor, and HRT. However, they quickly disappeared again and collected just three points between them. History is both a warning and a benchmark.
If Formula 1 allows an eleventh team, it is only with the expectation that it has substance and a perspective over years. That is exactly Cadillac’s primary goal. No one should seriously assume that a debutant will achieve victories right away or mix it up in the tight midfield against teams that can rely on structures grown over at least a decade.
Cadillac does not expect to beat the competition
“It’s quite a challenge to come in and expect to beat the others,” Lowdon himself notes. “If you were the owner of one of those teams and a new team shows up and beats you, you’d most likely be pretty angry, to put it mildly.”
“I think people just need to realize that it’s a really difficult sport.” How difficult was already evident during the test drives in Bahrain: it looked as if Cadillac would be fighting with Aston Martin for the tail end of the field, as there wasn’t a day without problems occurring.
Currently, there is a lack of basic downforce, which is hardly surprising given that the competition has been sharpening its development tools for years. This makes it all the more important that the opening race in Melbourne does not serve as the sole indicator of seasonal success.
For Cadillac, development is what counts most
There is a consensus in Formula 1: In view of the comprehensive rule changes, the development curve during the season will be more decisive than the status quo in the spring. “We have a very robust process for this,” emphasizes Cadillac advisor Pat Symonds with regard to vehicle development.
Within the budget limit, the priorities are well known. “We have already planned a fairly aggressive development program. Even in Melbourne, you will see a car that is significantly different in many areas than this one, as will be the case throughout the pit lane. I am therefore quite confident that we can deliver that.”
A structural advantage: Cadillac starts its debut season with two Grand Prix winners. Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have experienced the development cycles of winning World Championship cars and thus have experience that is worth its weight in gold, especially in the build-up phase.
Valtteri Bottas defines the goal for Cadillac
“The great thing is that we get accurate feedback immediately,” emphasizes Lowdon. “These guys are so experienced with several different teams, working with different engineers and different cars, different power units, different chassis.”
“And yes, I know the ’26 car is very different, but when a driver gives feedback, especially on handling and everything else, we don’t waste time. We get super accurate, thoughtful, and valuable feedback immediately. That was basically exactly what we were looking for.”
And what do the drivers themselves think? Perez believes the key is “to outperform the teams ahead of us” and knows it will be a tough start to the new season. But that again raises the question of what actually counts as a “good success” for Cadillac at the end of the year.
“A successful year for us as a team is that we see clear progress,” Bottas adds. “It’s really not about where we start, because the team has already done an incredible job to be here, to have a car, to drive. So yes, it’s not about where we start, but where we end.”
“To see that we are making progress, making the car faster, making the car more reliable, becoming better as a team – all these things, we just want to keep getting better. That is therefore a good starting point and a goal for this year.”
Cadillac wants to earn the respect of the other teams
Progress is therefore the internal currency. From the outside, one or two points would be a respectable success. For comparison: Haas collected a total of 29 points in its debut year. But points can also result from racing luck; performance development is more sustainable.
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Consistently falling lap times in qualifying to close the gap to the competition will be a reliable indicator. Even more important, however, is the perception in the paddock. “One thing is really important: we have to earn the respect of the other teams,” says Symonds.
“That’s particularly important to me because I think we deserve that respect, and that’s not just with the car, it’s about our entire organization. It was very gratifying in Barcelona that we received many compliments from other teams, simply about our garage layout, how we prepare the cars and all that.”
Team Principal: Cadillac wants to “really build something”
Actually, the idea of an eleventh team was initially viewed skeptically by the existing ten, not least out of concern for the distribution of revenue. Cadillac must therefore prove both sportingly and structurally that it is a natural part of the “new” grid.
In any case, Lowdon sees his team already on the right track: “The way we solved problems as a team was really very calm. You can see that in the garage. It’s very easy to judge that in the garage, but also in the engineering meetings.”
“In fact, it’s one of the characteristics of the team that first struck me during the shakedown at Silverstone,” says the team principal. “We went into the garage that morning, and what I saw was a calm, collected Formula 1 team, ready to work.”
The Cadillac design for 2026
“If you have that as a foundation, you can really, really build. If, on the other hand, you come into a garage and there’s chaos, you might still be fast, but you eventually hit a limit. And that’s what we’ve always said.”
“As a team, we have great ambitions. We are realistic and grounded and know how difficult this game is, but we didn’t just want to be here. We really want to build something, and I feel that we have. I think the car reflects the team.”
Laying foundations for the future works project
The focus has long been beyond the present. 2026 serves primarily to create viable foundations so that the years thereafter have substance. The strategic fixed point is 2029: that’s when the Ferrari customer status is to end and their own power units are to take over.