Budkowski Picks Cadillac After Talks with Over Half of F1 Grid

New Cadillac team principal Marcin Budkowski has revealed he held negotiations with “more than half” of the Formula 1 grid before choosing the debutant outfit.

The American squad made a shock announcement on Wednesday that Graeme Lowdon had been replaced by Budkowski during the summer shutdown of its rookie F1 campaign.

Cadillac sits bottom of the championship without a point after 11 rounds, but Lowdon’s dismissal was still a surprise given expectations that they would be slowest.

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CEO Dan Towriss opted for change, bringing in Budkowski, who has held various roles in the world championship since joining Prost as an aerodynamicist in 2001.

The 49-year-old left Prost in 2002 for a five-year stint at Ferrari, then joined McLaren before becoming technical and sporting coordinator for the FIA in 2014. In 2020, he moved to Renault as executive director, sharing team principal duties with Davide Brivio in 2021. After leaving Enstone in 2022, he worked as a TV pundit before returning to F1 four years later.

“I've had discussions in the past years with more than half of the teams on the grid - some of them more advanced and some less advanced,” Budkowski confirmed. “But for me, it was important, if I come back to this kind of leadership role, to be in a project that I believe in.”

He highlighted the project’s ambition, backing from TWG Group, and General Motors’ global presence. “Funding wasn't always the case in my previous ventures,” he added.

Budkowski also emphasized that the team’s leadership is full of “motorsport people” who live and breathe racing. “The conversation is completely different from the get-go,” he said. “There's a real understanding of how challenging it is, of the timelines of the road ahead.”

With aligned visions with Towriss, he feels pressure will be manageable. “There will be expectations, that's logical, but they are not unreasonable and not removed from the reality of Formula 1,” he concluded.