Cadillac puts Horner chatter to bed: Towriss backs Lowdon, focuses on 2026
Cadillac’s F1 project isn’t shopping for a superstar team boss. Not now, not later. That was the clear message from Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss, who moved quickly to stamp out talk of Christian Horner joining the American entrant.
“There have been no talks with Christian Horner, and there are no plans to do that,” Towriss told reporters, adding he wanted to “officially shut down” the rumor. The incoming outfit’s faith, he underlined, sits firmly with team principal Graeme Lowdon, the former Marussia chief tasked with steering Cadillac’s debut.
The timing matters. Cadillac has just set its driver spine for 2026 with a pragmatic, high-mileage pairing: Sergio Perez returns to the grid alongside Valtteri Bottas. That’s a lot of Sunday experience and a healthy stash of wins between them—exactly the kind of ballast a new operation craves when it starts threading together departments, suppliers and a car concept on the clock.
Horner, meanwhile, remains a headline without a home following his immediate dismissal from Red Bull in the wake of the British Grand Prix, ending a two-decade tenure that oversaw an era of relentless silverware. Whether he wants back in is another story. Bernie Ecclestone, never shy with an opinion and still close to Horner, suggested the 51-year-old would only entertain a return with equity on the table. In modern F1, that’s hardly a fantasy notion—Adrian Newey has landed at Aston Martin as managing technical partner and shareholder, while Toto Wolff’s dual role at Mercedes includes a sizeable ownership stake.
Cadillac’s stance, then, feels deliberate. Rather than importing a headline name and the gravitational pull that comes with it, the project is leaning into a defined structure: Lowdon up top, two proven race-winners in the cockpit, and a clear run at building a culture that’s theirs from day one. For a new team, clean lines beat noise.
There’ll be plenty of time to debate the upside of hiring a marquee boss. For now, Cadillac’s message is refreshingly blunt: no Horner courtship, no distraction, and no ambiguity about who’s in charge. The 2026 countdown is on, and they’re keeping their eyes on the car, not the gossip.
