- Graeme Lowdon will serve as team principal for the future Cadillac F1 team
- Cadillac F1 is expected to start racing in 2026 as an 11th team
- A Cadillac power unit is in the works but likely won’t be ready for the 2026 debut
Former Marussia Sporting Director Graeme Lowdon was named on Thursday as the team principal for the planned Cadillac Formula 1 team, which aims to start racing in 2026.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after General Motors and its partner for the F1 endeavor, TWG Global, the parent company of Andretti Global and multiple other racing teams, reached an agreement in principle with F1 organizers to get Cadillac on the grid as an 11th team by 2026.
Lowdon previously helped the British racing team Manor develop an F1 team, which started competing in 2010 as Virgin Racing, and later would be branded as Marussia and finally Manor before the team was disbanded in 2017. During that time, he held various senior roles at the team, including sporting director when the team raced as Marussia. The sporting director is the person responsible for all of the team’s trackside operations.
More recently, Lowdon has been managing current F1 driver Zhou Guanyu, who races for Sauber but will be without a seat next year. Guanyu and current teammate Valtteri Bottas will be replaced by Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto next year, the final year the team competes as Sauber. In 2026, Sauber will become the factory team of Audi.
Lowdon has also been working as an advisor for the Cadillac F1 project and was influential in getting the team’s entry approved. Other former F1 staff linked with the project include former Renault Technical Director Nick Chester and former Renault Operations Chief Rob White.
“Graeme has been a pleasure to work with over the past two years, and we’re excited he will lead our journey to the 2026 Formula 1 grid as team principal,” Mark Reuss, GM’s president, said in a statement. “He has great racing expertise, he knows how to assemble a high-performing team, and he embodies the values the Cadillac Formula 1 Team will represent in all its endeavors, on or off the track.”
Under its agreement with F1, GM also plans to develop its own power unit. However, any GM power unit isn’t expected to be ready until 2028 at the earliest, meaning the Cadillac team will need to purchase a power unit from another supplier initially. New power unit rules coming into effect in 2026 maintain the format of a turbocharged 1.6-liter V-6 hybrid setup, but with reduced power from the gas engine and more reliance on the hybrid system.
