By Alan Baldwin
LONDON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Formula One newcomers Cadillac sacked founding principal Graeme Lowdon after half a season on Wednesday and replaced him with Polish-French engineer Marcin Budkowski in a move they admitted had been planned behind the scenes for some time.
Budkowski, 49, has held positions at a number of teams including Ferrari and McLaren as well as the governing FIA.
Lowdon, a 61-year-old Briton, had led General Motors-backed Cadillac from 2024 through the process of becoming
the sport's 11th team, hiring personnel and seeing the cars line up on the starting grid in Melbourne for the first time last March.
Cadillac, not unexpectedly, are the only team yet to score a point in 11 rounds this season, suffering reliability issues although they have performed better than Aston Martin for much of the time and have experienced drivers in Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas.
Cadillac said in a statement that Budkowski's arrival would help long-term competitive development.
"His appointment follows a planned leadership transition as the organization evolves from its initial build phase into the next stage of racing performance," the team said in a statement, thanking Lowdon for his contribution.
LOWDON INFORMED ON WEDNESDAY MORNING
Dan Towriss, the Cadillac F1 CEO who also runs team owners TWG Motorsports, said Budkowski brought "exceptional F1 experience, technical expertise and strategic leadership that will strengthen our organisation and help us develop the winning mindset, tools and processes required for long-term success.”
Speaking to reporters later, Towriss said he had called Lowdon earlier on Wednesday morning to tell him the news.
"It was my decision, it wasn't a mutual decision," said the American.
"I think really the process started a few months ago to explore what, really thinking about what the next phase for Cadillac F1 looks like, what's the right timing ... and then the capabilities of the various folks out there.
"There is no easy way to make this transition within Formula One. Can you imagine the press if Marcin's strolling through for a tour of the factory or we're having these conversations? It becomes destabilising at that point. But it's the nature of Formula One and it's the way it had to happen."
Budkowski started in Formula One with now-defunct Prost in 2001 and then joined Ferrari before switching to McLaren in 2007.
In 2014 he moved to the FIA as technical and sporting coordinator before then working for Renault F1 from 2017-22, latterly as Alpine's executive director. Cadillac's current technical director Nick Chester worked with him at Alpine's Enstone factory.
Budkowski said he had discussions in recent years with more than half of the teams on the starting grid and Towriss had not called him "out of the blue".
"It took a few discussions to get to this stage," he said. "And I also had a few discussions with people at General Motors, up to the very top, up to (GM President) Mark Reuss.
"It was important if I come back to this kind of leadership role to be in a project that I believe in," he added.
The next race is the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23, after the teams return from the sport's European summer break.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin;Editing by Alison Williams, Christian Radnedge and Pritha Sarkar)
