Cadillac F1 Boss Makes Honest Admission Amid Difficult Start to Life on Grid

A pitstop time of 23.228 seconds in Miami came in faster than Ferrari, Haas, and Audi managed on the day, though there remains ground to make up on Mercedes‘ benchmark of 22.042 seconds.

These are the kinds of operational gains that a brand-new team should be chasing, and they are finding them.

That incremental thinking extends to how Cadillac wants to present itself to fans and sponsors. Towriss is clear that doing things differently requires earning the credibility to do so first. “The goal is not to overdo it, to do things differently just to be different,” he said. “I think that in order to have the right to do things differently, you have to do everyday things very well to show that we know how Formula 1 works, that we know what is expected, and that we can manage the basic daily tasks, and execute this with precision and quality. Next, I think we will be able to organize different events and be different in a way that we believe grows the sport and is not just a ‘look at us’ spectacle. The goal is to develop our fan base and help grow Formula 1 here in the United States.”

Why Bottas and Perez Are the Right Drivers for This Specific Job

Bottas and Perez arrived at Cadillac with 527 Grand Prix starts and 16 race wins between them, and neither is there to collect a paycheck while the team figures itself out. Towriss has been clear about the role they’re playing:

“I think that’s where experience comes in, and I think Valtteri and Checo both had a good mix of balance, pushing but not forcing to the point where it was detrimental to the team, giving the team space to grow and space to respond. But at the same time, they hold the team responsible. They highlight what we need to develop, what works, what doesn’t work, while we continue to refine everything and evolve to become a team of the future.”

That balance, pressure without chaos, is genuinely hard to find.

Both drivers had difficult final seasons at their previous teams, with Perez finishing 285 points behind Max Verstappen at Red Bull and Bottas failing to score a single point at Sauber.

Cadillac did its due diligence and looked beyond those results rather than at them.

Towriss said the team spent considerable time examining Bottas’ qualifying versus race performance relative to the tools he had at Sauber, and came away satisfied that the car was the problem. It’s a reasonable conclusion and one borne out by two drivers who are clearly engaged and building something rather than winding down.

The long game here is the only game.

GM’s own power unit is not due until 2029, with Ferrari supplying engines until then, which means the team has several seasons of runway before it can truly call itself a works operation. Between now and then, avoiding stagnation and building the institutional knowledge of a proper F1 team is the real deliverable. Qualifying 18th and 19th isn’t the destination. The question is whether the line is pointing upward – and right now, Towriss insists it is.