By Rory Carroll
LAS VEGAS (Reuters) -Cadillac team boss Graeme Lowdon says Formula One's newest team will set out clear targets for their debut next season, focusing on execution and development rather than headline results.
Speaking about his expectations, the team principal said it was impossible to set realistic championship targets before seeing how Cadillac's car compared with rivals.
"Next year, it's impossible at the moment to predict anything championship-wise," Lowdon told reporters at the Las
Vegas Grand Prix.
"Absolutely nobody knows where they're going to be next year."
Lowdon said Cadillac F1 would focus on factors within its control in year one, such as operational discipline and how much performance it can extract from the car it has designed.
"We've got some obvious targets for next year - that we have everything ready and that kind of thing," he said.
"We'll be measuring all the things that we're in control of and how we execute those. That's the key thing for next year. How do we operate?"
Backed by the resources of General Motors, Lowdon said the project was structured to compete at Formula One's cost cap and grow quickly, rather than settling for a long-term role at the back of the grid.
"With the backing that we have, both financially and in terms of technology and vision and everything else, we've said before that our ambitions are limitless and they should be," he said.
"We'll be in a position to operate at the cost cap and so we want to - irrelevant of where we start next year - move forward and develop in a constructive way."
The British ex-Marussia chief executive acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing a new entrant competing with established outfits, but said Cadillac F1 was hiring experienced staff and built for the long term.
"I know how difficult Formula One is, you can't just turn up and go against the teams that have been doing it for years and years. These teams are extremely good at what they do and we have a huge respect for them," he said.
"But we're hiring good people and if we operate well then we'll build a good team as well, and that adds to the competition.
"It's very clear that the way we're structured, we're not just here to tag along. We're here to really try and build a successful Formula One team and that's my objective."
Cadillac will join the Formula 1 grid as the 11th team in 2026 with Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas as their drivers.
Cadillac will be the second U.S.-flagged team on the grid next season alongside Haas.
(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Las Vegas; Editing by Jacqueline Wong)
