{"id":899059,"date":"2026-09-20T16:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-20T16:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/899059\/"},"modified":"2026-09-20T16:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-20T16:02:11","slug":"cadillac-f1-relocation-rumours-addressed-as-budkowski-denies-team-move-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/899059\/","title":{"rendered":"Cadillac F1 relocation rumours addressed as Budkowski denies team move to US"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cadillac<\/a> F1 boss Marcin Budkowski has addressed rumours that the team\u2019s centre of gravity shift to the United States includes forcing employees to relocate.<\/p>\n

While Cadillac is building up its US capabilities, speculation emerged that staff were being given an ultimatum to relocate or face losing their jobs.<\/p>\n

Marcin Budkowski addresses Cadillac\u2019s US expansion and Silverstone future<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s progress following Lowdon successfully getting the team prepared and ready for its debut at the start of \u201926.<\/p>\n

Operating from a facility at Silverstone, a brand-new base for key manufacturing and logistics planning, Cadillac<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

A separate brand-new facility is also being built near Charlotte, North Carolina, to house the GM power unit programme.<\/p>\n

Over the winter, Cadillac executive engineering consultant Pat Symonds told the Autocar podcast that the intent is to shift the team\u2019s \u201ccentre of gravity\u201d 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\u2019s victory in an Eagle at the 1967 Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, of necessity, are building it out of the UK. It\u2019s where a lot of the sort of skill base is,\u201d Symonds said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe centre of gravity at the moment is Silverstone, certainly for chassis and for racing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea is to transition everything to the States. So, for example, a new simulator is going into the Indianapolis building.<\/p>\n

\u201cIndianapolis 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\u2019s exciting. It\u2019s difficult. It\u2019s a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a big difference now. Formula 1 in America is big, and it wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we will leave in Silverstone\u2026 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\u2019re changing race to race, we\u2019ll probably leave that in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cManufacturing, we will move to America reasonably soon, always keeping a capability in the UK, and then, over a period of time, we\u2019ll start transitioning other parts.\u201d<\/p>\n

With most of Formula 1\u2019s manufacturing and design workforce based in Europe, particularly around the UK\u2019s \u2018motorsport valley\u2019, 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.<\/p>\n

Recently, rumours emerged via the Paddock Access podcast that Cadillac\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As for the \u201ccentre of gravity\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI [don\u2019t] 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes F1 tends to be a little bit centred on itself and a closed field. I think there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cApart 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\u2019s quite impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo 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\u2019s through manufacturing capability or others, which I\u2019m not discussing here in detail.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, 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\u2019ve built a really impressive facility there.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Cadillac in F1<\/p>\n

Inside Cadillac\u2019s brake issues, shock leadership change and why Graeme Lowdon had to go<\/a><\/p>\n

New Cadillac boss given four immediate priorities as \u2018major obstacle\u2019 targeted<\/a><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of good things in the team and, especially, it\u2019s pretty impressive given the time they had to build the team and the conditions with the entry and everything,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo there are a lot of good things. There\u2019s no legacy compared to some other teams. There are a lot of open-minded, constructive discussions going on.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut 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\u2019s about working in some areas that need more attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, in the short term, obviously reliability. We\u2019ve seen we\u2019ve 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\u2019s understandable.<\/p>\n

\u201cLonger 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\u2019m not going to share these ones with you!<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality is we\u2019re in a phase of the season where we\u2019re all working on next year\u2019s car. We\u2019ve switched the resources mostly to next year. We have a development pipeline that\u2019s slowly drying out.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of our resources have also been, unfortunately, busy fixing our reliability issues rather than working on performance items.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s performance there that we can still extract this year. But our focus needs to be on next year\u2019s car, and I think everybody will tell you this up and down the pit lane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Want to be the first to know exclusive information from the F1 paddock? Join our broadcast channel on WhatsApp<\/a> to get the scoop on the latest developments from our team of accredited journalists.<\/p>\n

You can also subscribe to the PlanetF1 YouTube channel<\/a> for exclusive features, hear from our paddock journalists with stories from the heart of Formula 1 and much more!<\/p>\n

Read next: Red Bull makes new admission over Max Verstappen \u2018car degradation\u2019 complaints<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cadillac F1 boss Marcin Budkowski has addressed rumours that the team\u2019s centre of gravity shift to the United…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":899060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,3550,817,813,816,818,423324,44,85],"class_list":["post-899059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cadillac","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-marcin-budkowski","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/899060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}