Cadillac F1 boss Marcin Budkowski has addressed rumours that the team’s centre of gravity shift to the United States includes forcing employees to relocate.
While Cadillac is building up its US capabilities, speculation emerged that staff were being given an ultimatum to relocate or face losing their jobs.
Marcin Budkowski addresses Cadillac’s US expansion and Silverstone future
As Cadillac starts to close in on completion of its first year in Formula 1, the US team has already started on its path of evolution.
During the summer break, CEO Dan Towriss took the decision to part ways with former team principal Graeme Lowdon in a unilateral move to bring about the second phase of the team’s progress following Lowdon successfully getting the team prepared and ready for its debut at the start of ’26.
Operating from a facility at Silverstone, a brand-new base for key manufacturing and logistics planning, Cadillac also operates out of GM facilities in Fishers, Indiana, while a brand-new facility is also being built in Indianapolis for manufacturing and to house the wind tunnel and Dynisma simulator.
A separate brand-new facility is also being built near Charlotte, North Carolina, to house the GM power unit programme.
Over the winter, Cadillac executive engineering consultant Pat Symonds told the Autocar podcast that the intent is to shift the team’s “centre of gravity” away from the UK and to the United States, as Cadillac aims to become the first American-built constructor to win a grand prix since Dan Gurney’s victory in an Eagle at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix.
“We, of necessity, are building it out of the UK. It’s where a lot of the sort of skill base is,” Symonds said.
“The centre of gravity at the moment is Silverstone, certainly for chassis and for racing.
“The idea is to transition everything to the States. So, for example, a new simulator is going into the Indianapolis building.
“Indianapolis will be doing most of the production that, at the moment, is in the sort of European supply chain. That will all move over to America, relatively soon. It’s exciting. It’s difficult. It’s a challenge.
“There’s a big difference now. Formula 1 in America is big, and it wasn’t.
“What we will leave in Silverstone… the idea is the concept design will remain in the UK for a fair while. What we have termed our rapid response manufacturing, so things like front wings and floors that you’re changing race to race, we’ll probably leave that in the UK.
“Manufacturing, we will move to America reasonably soon, always keeping a capability in the UK, and then, over a period of time, we’ll start transitioning other parts.”
With most of Formula 1’s manufacturing and design workforce based in Europe, particularly around the UK’s ‘motorsport valley’, an attempt to build a race-winning F1 team in the United States is made all the more difficult by way of most of the established F1 talent pool being in Europe.
Recently, rumours emerged via the Paddock Access podcast that Cadillac’s transition to the United States has seen the squad issue ultimatums to its staff: move to the United States, or look for a job elsewhere.
Sources have indicated that such an ultimatum has not been made: the co-existence of separate facilities on either side of the Atlantic means there will be workforces in both, and there is the option for existing staff in the UK to move to the US should they so choose.
As for the “centre of gravity” shift to the United States, team boss Marcin Budkowski addressed this topic, and the rumours of the supposed ultimatum, when asked by PlanetF1.com about the difficulties in making such a shift when the majority of the talent pool is in Europe.
“I [don’t] think the existing talent pool is in Europe. The talent pool, the reality is, everywhere, and I think we have to take this into account,” he said.
“Sometimes F1 tends to be a little bit centred on itself and a closed field. I think there’s a lot of talent everywhere in the world, and especially in the US, when you see all the tech firms, all the space firms being built there and being incredibly successful.
“Apart from this, at the moment, we just opened a new factory in Silverstone. Anybody who has doubts that this is a temporary facility should come and visit because it’s quite impressive.
“We had Valtteri [Bottas] and Checo [Perez] coming on Tuesday to have some technical meetings there and speak to the staff, and they were really impressed.
“So was I on the first day I walked in. We are effectively building some facilities in the US as well. We will progressively develop a footprint in the US, whether that’s through manufacturing capability or others, which I’m not discussing here in detail.
“But, at the moment, all the rumours that the team will move there shortly, etc., are totally unfounded. And again, anyone who has doubts about this should come and visit us in Silverstone because we’ve built a really impressive facility there.”
More on Cadillac in F1
Inside Cadillac’s brake issues, shock leadership change and why Graeme Lowdon had to go
New Cadillac boss given four immediate priorities as ‘major obstacle’ targeted
With Budkowski now settling into his role a month on from the seismic leadership change post-Lowdon, the former Alpine technical director said work has begun on identifying and addressing the areas that most need attention as the team starts to mature.
“I’ve seen a lot of good things in the team and, especially, it’s pretty impressive given the time they had to build the team and the conditions with the entry and everything,” he said.
“So there are a lot of good things. There’s no legacy compared to some other teams. There are a lot of open-minded, constructive discussions going on.
“But there are also a number of shortcuts that have been taken, which is inevitable when you build a new team in such a time. So, yes, it’s about working in some areas that need more attention.
“I mean, in the short term, obviously reliability. We’ve seen we’ve struggled with that in some areas, and just getting the operational excellence to the level it should be, which is not the level of a top team as of today, but that’s understandable.
“Longer term, there are some clear priorities that are emerging for what we need to do and what we need to do better, mostly to improve our performance and our pace. But I’m not going to share these ones with you!
“The reality is we’re in a phase of the season where we’re all working on next year’s car. We’ve switched the resources mostly to next year. We have a development pipeline that’s slowly drying out.
“A lot of our resources have also been, unfortunately, busy fixing our reliability issues rather than working on performance items.
“So naturally, the development is plateauing in this phase of the season. But I think on our side, we have a lot of potential through fixing the reliability, fixing the operational side, and fixing the quality of the car.
“There’s performance there that we can still extract this year. But our focus needs to be on next year’s car, and I think everybody will tell you this up and down the pit lane.”
Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.
You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!
Read next: Red Bull makes new admission over Max Verstappen ‘car degradation’ complaints