{"id":35860,"date":"2025-07-11T15:22:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T19:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/?p=35860"},"modified":"2025-07-11T15:22:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-11T19:22:11","slug":"f1-cadillac-on-target-with-2026-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/2025\/07\/11\/f1-cadillac-on-target-with-2026-development\/","title":{"rendered":"F1: Cadillac “On Target” with 2026 Development"},"content":{"rendered":"

On paper, a new team like Cadillac has the odds stacked against them when preparing for their debut F1<\/a> season. However, team principal Graeme Lowdon – who went through a similar process at the helm of Virgin Racing\/Manor Marussia – makes clear that Cadillac aren’t on the grid to make up the numbers.<\/p>\n

Cadillac aim to be competitive from round one in 2026<\/h2>\n

Cadillac’s journey to Formula 1 has been well-documented by LWOS, with their extensive negotiations with FOM taking headlines for several years.<\/p>\n

There were always lingering doubts about whether the American project would get the green light to join F1.<\/p>\n

\"\"
British Grand Prix, Sunday,<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, Liberty Media’s U-turn on Cadillac was relatively unexpected – requiring a series of important changes behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

Regardless, Cadillac<\/a> could not wait for official approval to begin working on their F1 aspirations.<\/p>\n

The team have been working on the 2026 regulations for some time – both with a wind tunnel and simulator.<\/p>\n

Unlike other teams, they did not have to balance their 2025 development<\/a> with next year’s regulations.<\/p>\n

Cadillac’s F1 entry was given the go-ahead last November, but the team already had a significant workforce of engineers pushing ahead on their 2026<\/a> challenger.<\/p>\n

Moreover, wind tunnel and CFD restrictions only applied to the US squad starting from January 1st, 2025.<\/p>\n

Before then, therefore, they had unlimited hours in the wind tunnel to develop their concept for next year’s regulations.<\/p>\n

To be clear, none of this takes away from the challenges Cadillac must confront over the next twelve months.<\/p>\n

Still, there are plenty of reasons for F1’s 11th team<\/a> to be competitive – even in their rookie season.<\/p>\n

Lowdon outlines progress ahead of next season<\/h3>\n

Cadillac’s team principal, Graeme Lowdon, has no shortage of experience in Formula 1.<\/p>\n

Before joining Zhou Guanyu’s management<\/a>, he was in charge of Virgin Racing and Manor from 2010-15, a team whose financial resources were a huge limiting factor.<\/p>\n

Still, of the three teams who entered F1 in 2010, it was Lowdon’s that lasted longest and achieved the most success.<\/p>\n

With significantly more resources and a more even playing field, Lowdon intends to be far more competitive with his next F1 endeavour.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Zhou Guanyu, KICK Sauber F1 Team ; 2024 Qatar Grand Prix, Formula One World Championship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The 60-year-old understands the demands of competing with far more more experienced teams.<\/p>\n

Still, Lowdon emphasised to Sky Sports<\/a> that Cadillac are a team with ambition:<\/p>\n

“We have a countdown clock, which shows the time between now and free practice one in Melbourne, so everyone’s acutely aware of the of the timeline.<\/em><\/p>\n

“We’re on target. We’ve been in the wind tunnel with a ’26 car for quite some time.<\/em><\/p>\n

“It’s super difficult. It’s intensely competitive, it really, really is.<\/em><\/p>\n

“There is a regulation change so we are yet to see how other teams will adapt to that.<\/em><\/p>\n

“But no new team coming into Formula 1 has any right, in reality, to be anywhere other than the back of the grid.<\/em><\/p>\n

“So obviously our challenge is to try and move forward and we’ve got all the right ingredients….<\/em><\/p>\n

“I think it is important to have ambition and you can see from TWG and from Cadillac, this is a team that does have vision and ambition to move forward.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Main photo: Sam Bagnall\/Sutton Images (via Red Bull content pool)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On paper, a new team like Cadillac has the odds stacked against them when preparing for their debut F1 season. However, team principal Graeme Lowdon – who went through a similar process at the helm of Virgin Racing\/Manor Marussia – makes clear that Cadillac aren’t on the grid to make up the numbers. Cadillac aim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4927,"featured_media":35864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[2519,2452],"class_list":["post-35860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-formula-1","category-news","tag-cadillac-f1","tag-f1-2025-season"],"modified_by":"Jaden Diaz-Ndisang","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4927"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35870,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35860\/revisions\/35870"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/motorsports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}