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Cadillac F1 Reliability Upgrades Planned for 2026 Second Half
July 21, 2025 – Cadillac F1 is gearing up for a crucial second half of the 2026 season, with a priority on sorting out persistent reliability issues that have hampered its debut campaign. The American team, now under the leadership of new team principal Marcin Budkowski, still has a handful of updates planned for the current car, even as development work on the 2027 challenger accelerates.
Since rolling out two cars for the first time in the 2026 winter test, Cadillac has faced a bumpy road. Despite the veteran experience of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas, reliability gremlins have repeatedly undermined performance. The team initially felt confident after avoiding last place against Aston Martin early in the season, but a major upgrade package from the Silverstone-based rival at the Hungarian Grand Prix pushed Cadillac back, largely due to ongoing mechanical issues that overshadowed some genuine progress.
Dan Towriss, head of TWG Motorsports, confirmed in a recent media call that the team will continue to bring incremental updates to the 2026 car. “We are still focusing on the 2026 car and the 2026 season and would expect to see additional upgrades coming still this year,” he said. Towriss emphasized that fixing early-stage problems – from factory-to-track communication to car reliability – will unlock performance gains that go beyond any single upgrade.
When asked about the main objectives for the remainder of the season, Towriss pointed directly to reliability. “Yeah, so I think it’s reliability, performance, kind of process, organisation and culture,” he explained. “The reliability piece, I think Marcin has spoken to quite a bit. Performance, really just continuing to enhance the team that we have.” He noted that every race weekend the garage operations become more cohesive, and the connection from the factory to the track is improving. Those incremental process improvements, he argued, will naturally lead to on-track performance boosts.
The team has already replaced Graeme Lowdon with Budkowski, a former FIA technical director, to bring a stronger engineering focus. Towriss is betting on Budkowski’s technical expertise to guide Cadillac through the second half of 2026 and into 2027. “With leadership changes, as well as the evolution of this team, it’s going to be about culture,” Towriss said. “That’s communication, that’s leadership, it’s accountability.”
One of the key challenges for Cadillac is juggling short-term fixes with long-term planning. While other teams are already deep into 2027 car development, Cadillac must keep upgrading the 2026 machine without losing sight of future competitiveness. Towriss stressed that the remaining 2026 updates are designed not to distract from the 2027 priorities. “We do have additional upgrades that we’re looking at to bring to the track as well that won’t distract from the 2027 priorities,” he said.
The team’s factory in Silverstone is also being restructured under Budkowski’s guidance. Insiders suggest that the new leadership has already streamlined communication channels, reducing the time between identifying a problem on track and implementing a fix back at base. This efficiency gain, though invisible to fans, could be crucial for the team’s reliability record in the second half.
F1 technical analyst Craig Scarborough noted that Cadillac’s situation mirrors that of many new entrants: “Getting reliability right is the first step – you can’t develop performance if you’re constantly fixing the car. The shift to Budkowski, who has a strong background in engineering management, is a smart move. The next few races will show whether the team can turn the corner.”
Meanwhile, rival teams have observed that Cadillac’s pit stop times have improved by nearly half a second on average since the mid-season break, a sign that organizational changes are already bearing fruit. If the upcoming updates – expected to focus on power unit cooling and rear suspension geometry – can deliver the promised gains, Cadillac could close the gap to the midfield by the season finale.
Towriss is clear that the second half of 2026 is not just about fixing problems, but about building a foundation for the future. “I think there’s an opportunity to bring all those things together and to raise the bar over the remaining, building momentum through the remaining half of 2026, through the back half of the season, which we hope will be a real springboard for us going into 2027,” he said.
With Budkowski at the helm, Cadillac now has a technical leader capable of integrating the team’s various departments. The next races – starting with the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps – will be a real test of whether the reliability upgrades hold up under pressure. If they do, Cadillac could end its first full season on a high note, setting the stage for a more competitive 2027.
