Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez React to Cadillac’s Surprise Team Principal Change Ahead of Dutch Grand Prix

• Cadillac replaced founding team principal Graeme Lowdon with Marcin Budkowski in the middle of the summer break, a move that caught both of the team’s drivers off guard.
• Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez both said they respect the decision even with their close relationship with Lowdon, who built the team from scratch.
• Budkowski toured Cadillac’s new Silverstone base for the first time on Monday before flying straight into his first race weekend in charge at Zandvoort.

The Formula 1 summer break was interrupted by news that Cadillac’s founding team principal Graeme Lowdon had been replaced by Marcin Budkowski, a decision from TWG Motorsports chief executive Dan Towriss that came as a surprise to plenty in the paddock, including his own drivers.

Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez were both signed to Cadillac by Lowdon for the team’s first season on the grid, a two-way show of faith between driver and team principal. Speaking in Zandvoort on Thursday as the sport resumed after its break, both drivers said they had accepted the change even if it had not been an easy one to process.

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‘A Real Shame,’ but Bottas Understands the Call

Bottas said the timing of the switch had caught him off guard. “I think big change like this in the middle of the season is always initially surprising,” he said. “But then speaking with Dan, he explained to me all the reasons behind this change, and I respect that. I think if we just keep everything the same, we’re never going to progress. So we’ve got to change some things.”

He was clear about his personal feelings toward Lowdon. “Obviously, it’s a real shame that it was Graeme who got out because, first of all, he’s a friend of mine. But I also think he’s done a great job setting up the team and getting ready to be on the grid in the first race. So my hat off for that. But at the same time, also welcoming Marcin. I don’t know him that well from the past, I’ve seen him around, but for sure in the next days we’re going to spend a lot of time together.”

Bottas admitted he had expected a different kind of shake-up if change was coming at all. “I think something needed to change. Some issues we’ve had have been dragging along. But I didn’t maybe quite expect that it’s such a big change, I was maybe expecting more stuff happening at the factory,” he said. “But some of these things, we as drivers don’t see what needs to be changed sometimes when it comes to these things, because we are obviously very focused on the driving, on the performance, just giving our feedback. We are not the people who structure the team. That’s not our job.”

Perez Backs a Team ‘Willing to Move Forward’

Perez struck a similar note, giving credit to the work already done while backing the direction the team’s ownership wants to take. “I think Graeme has played a tremendous part in bringing Cadillac where it is now, together with Jim [Campbell, General Motors vice president for performance and motorsports] and Dan,” he said. “I think he’s part of the history of the team, and I wish him well on whatever comes next.”

“On Marcin, I think it’s really exciting. I haven’t been spending much time with him, but I think it was time to change and I think it shows that, although it’s only our first year, Cadillac is really willing to move forward this team as quickly as possible. We hope that with the new leadership that can come soon.”

‘These Guys Have Gone to War’

Budkowski had barely had time to settle in before his first race weekend in charge. He was given his first tour of Cadillac’s brand-new Silverstone base on Monday, the same day staff officially moved in, then had a couple of days to get an initial understanding of the operation before flying to Amsterdam on Wednesday evening ahead of Zandvoort.

“I’m focusing on listening and understanding how the team operates,” he said. “Who’s there, how it’s structured, how it’s organised, the processes in place, starting to get a feel for the areas that need prioritising or need improving. I’ve had two days of proper work. I’m going to need a bit more time, but I must say I’m impressed having seen where the people were working before, and knowing how tight the deadlines were to build a team from scratch, to design, build, homologate a car in time for testing, and to go testing.”

He was quick to credit Lowdon’s work building the team up in the first place, while setting out his own task as a different kind of challenge. “There’s been a change of leadership at the head of the team,” he said. “It’s been a decision made by the top leadership and the owners and the shareholders of the team. I’m honoured to have been picked to lead that following phase. I have immense respect and admiration for what’s been achieved so far by Graeme for building this team from the ground up, recruiting his people, and actually showing up and racing, and with a level of competitiveness that I think is reasonable for a new team.”

“Yes, there are glitches. Yes, there are reliability issues that maybe are not the level you expect from a Formula 1 team. But there’s a huge complexity in some areas, and the brake area is one of them. It’s one of these situations when you fix one thing, something else goes wrong, and you learn as you do it. It’s painful. At this stage, we’re really in the learning phase. We need the mileage, we need the laps to get as much learning as possible, as much data as possible.”

Budkowski compared the compressed timeline Lowdon worked under to a wartime effort. “These guys have done a cracking job, with Graeme and the team,” he said. “I’m impressed. At the same time, recruiting, growing, getting everybody in place. So there’s a lot that has been done there. Equally, in the time they had available, they had to take some shortcuts. And these shortcuts, some of them are biting us a little bit. For me, these guys have gone to war, and the decisions you make in wartime are different to the decisions you make in peacetime.”

“And I think if they had three years instead of one to do it, they would have done it a little bit differently. In some areas, they would have done it better. But it’s not a criticism, because what they’ve done in the time they had, I don’t think there’s a lot of people who could have done that. So it’s a great foundation. It’s a great starting point. There are things that are actually very, very good. There are things that need attention, and also there’s potentially some reprioritisation to be done in terms of what’s important.”

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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