For over a year, the new Cadillac Formula 1 team has had a countdown clock in its headquarters at Silverstone, England, clicking down to the Australian Grand Prix, the opening round of 2026. Last weekend, in Melbourne, the clock had been relocated to its pit garage.
“It started at, I think, 480 days and obviously the first 120 odd days of that was very uncertain,” Graeme Lowdon, team principal of Cadillac, said in an interview. “When it got to 366 days to go we actually had some certainty.”
That was when Cadillac, after a protracted process, was eventually granted an entry into Formula 1 as a new team for 2026.
“The clock was counting down, and we had it in the garage,” Lowdon said. “I had a look at it with five minutes to go until the start, and had a little smile to myself, that we’re here.”
Cadillac is Formula 1’s first new team in 10 years. The operation has grand ambitions, with development of a factory in Fishers, Ind., while General Motors will build its own power unit for 2029 in North Carolina. Its 2026 car, the MAC-26 — partially named in honor of 1978 World Champion Mario Andretti, who was with the team in Melbourne — is powered by a Ferrari engine.
Cadillac may be a new team, but it has experienced personnel, with familiar faces reacquainting themselves with the paddock in Melbourne. Lowdon previously worked for Manor; the technical veteran Pat Symonds has worked in Formula 1 for decades and is the team’s executive engineering consultant; Nick Chester, technical director, worked with Renault; and Pete Crolla, the race team manager, moved from Haas, the last team to join Formula 1.
Cadillac prepared last year by simulating Grand Prix weekends at its factory, including how long meetings took, turnaround times and even how long it took to walk between different parts of the paddock.
“I’m just incredibly grateful to be in a team of such wonderful people,” Lowdon said. “We’re building a really great team here, it’s already a team who a lot of people want to join.”
For now, ambitions are modest. Every moment is still a new experience and a lesson on a steep learning curve. Friday’s first practice session in Melbourne marked the first time Cadillac had run its two cars on track at the same time, and there were some teething problems, including sensor issues on the car and some bodywork detaching.
Last weekend was also the first time the group had worked together at a Grand Prix, and the first time all of the routine procedures have been crossed off a checklist.
The veteran drivers Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas qualified 18th and 19th, their positions slightly improved by three drivers failing to register a time because of accidents and mechanical problems.
The MAC-26 was the slowest of the 11 teams, and Pérez’s best time was about three seconds slower than the fastest in the session.
“When you consider everyone else is using fully calibrated wind tunnels and driver-in-loop simulators — plus we couldn’t run a car last year — so all of our tools are uncalibrated,” Lowdon said. “So to get within that time is really quite spectacular actually; now we can start collecting some data to try and close that gap.”
In Sunday’s race, Pérez achieved one of Cadillac’s targets by simply finishing. He was lapped three times and was the last of the 16 drivers who reached the checkered flag.
“The first step is done, as a team, completing the race is incredible,” Pérez said. “From now on the honeymoon is over, and now we need to do big steps for work, put a plan ASAP on the team to move along and close the gap, which I believe we can do. But we are already competitive inside the team, and that’s the attitude we need from now on, to be able to close the gap and aim for something big this year.”
Bottas had to stop his car after 16 of the 58 laps because of a problem with his car’s fuel system, but he was similarly encouraged.
“Overall, we were there, we were racing with some cars, we kept Aston [Martin] behind, it’s not like [we were] initially falling miles back, so that’s encouraging to see,” Bottas said. “I’m proud of the whole team and very happy to be back. This is part of the learning curve, we have to keep solving issues, and the only way is up from here.”
Aston Martin’s double retirement meant that Cadillac avoided being last in the constructors’ championship, but Cadillac is aware of the progress that is still required.
“We didn’t get two cars to the finish, but we got one, and that’s an unbelievably difficult thing to do at this level, there isn’t anything higher than Formula 1 in motorsport, so to achieve that is really good,” Lowdon said. “The key thing is we want multiple car finishes, that’s obvious, but also we need to just close that performance gap. We know that’s not easy as it’s such a development race in Formula 1, it’s not something that happens overnight.”
The team celebrated its first race with a commemorative photo in front of its pit garage.
“The danger previously was always that we saw Melbourne as the target instead of the actual start, and we’ve been aware and alert of that danger,” Lowdon said. “We haven’t fallen into that trap, this is the very, very start, the countdown clock goes in the opposite direction now. We’ve had three days operating as a team at a Grand Prix in Formula 1, so if we can do this in three days I’m really excited about what we can achieve as a team building upon this.”
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