Budkowski on why he begins Cadillac tenure ‘in listening mode’

Marcin Budkowski has wasted little time identifying the first task awaiting him at Cadillac – and it does not involve sweeping changes, bold declarations or immediate technical intervention.

The young American outfit's newly appointed team principal instead plans to listen.

Budkowski has inherited a Cadillac operation still searching for its first point after 11 races, while reliability problems have repeatedly undermined the team’s debut campaign.

Brake overheating and suspension failures have been recurring headaches, with both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas suffering race-ending problems at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The former Alpine executive technical chief replaced Graeme Lowdon after the latter was dismissed on August 12, taking charge at a pivotal moment in Cadillac’s maiden season.

‘Listen, observe’ comes first

Rather than immediately imposing his own philosophy, Budkowski wants to understand the people and processes already in place – particularly the relationship between Cadillac’s factory and its trackside operation.

“My first priority is going to be to listen, honestly, listen and observe in the factory because I need to meet the people. I need to understand how they work, how they work together, how the various individuals and departments first work together,” Budkowski told reporters last week.

“But throughout my F1 experience, I know that when a team is suffering reliability issues, as Cadillac had during the first half of the season, it's a huge risk of creating a disconnect between the trackside operations and the factory, and that needs to be very, very strong in any Formula One team.

“That link needs to be very, very strong, so that's why I will share my first week between the factory and the track in Zandvoort because I want to see both sides of the team and how they work together.

“I think that's going to be the short-term priorities: Listen, observe, and make sure the two entities are one team.”

Unlocking Cadillac’s untapped potential

Budkowski believes modern F1’s sprawling calendar can make maintaining that connection increasingly difficult, particularly for a team still building its foundations.

“When we have 24 races, the people from the factory and the people from the track don't see each other very often, and that's often an issue,” he said.

“When we had 16 races in F1, and we had much smaller teams, then people would spend a lot of time together at the factory. That's not the case anymore, and I think that connection is very, very important, especially in the short term.

“In the races, we still have to compete in this year, and there are quite a few, then it's going to be looking depth at the organisation, at the processes, at our tools, what we have, what we're still building, what we need, and I think General Motors has a lot to offer because there's a huge depth of technical expertise and tools there that doesn't feel like it's been completely used yet.

“I think, understandably, we're talking about a team who had a few months to be built from the ground up and put a race car together and go racing with it.

• Read also: Steiner casts doubt on Bottas’ Cadillac future: ‘He has given up’

“There’s a lot of technical expertise in the US. I mean, these guys are sending spaceships to Mars in the future. But I think there's a lot more to leverage there on the US side. It's not going to be immediate. It's going to take some time.

“But I think it would be foolish not to look at the talent and the technical expertise that we have on the other side of the pond as well.”

For Cadillac, Budkowski’s arrival therefore represents more than a change of name at the top. With the team struggling for reliability and performance, his first challenge is to establish whether the ingredients for improvement are already there — and, crucially, whether everyone is pulling in the same direction.

For now, the new boss is listening.

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