Graeme Lowdon isn’t pretending Cadillac’s debut season will be quiet, but he is trying to shut down one particular noise early: the suggestion that Ferrari’s 2026 power unit might be skating on the edge of the new rules.
With pre-season paddock chatter swirling around how manufacturers are interpreting the regulations’ 16:1 compression ratio limit, the Cadillac team principal has put his weight behind Ferrari’s approach, describing the engine his team will run in its first years as “fully legal”.
“What I’m very confident and happy about is we have a fully legal engine,” Lowdon said in comments to Sky Sports. “With these engines, the combustion is not allowed to take place at a compression ratio above 16 to 1. Without going into too many details, we know that Ferrari have completely followed the rules where that stands. That gives us a lot of confidence.”
The controversy itself is a familiar F1 shape: a hard number in the rulebook, and the question of when and how it’s measured in the real world. The latest speculation suggests that two manufacturers may have found a way for their engines to meet the 16:1 requirement when measured at ambient temperature, yet exceed it once the car is out on track. Mercedes and Red Bull have been the names most frequently linked to the idea, while Honda, Ferrari and Audi have reportedly written to the FIA seeking clarification.
That escalation has prompted an FIA meeting with power unit suppliers scheduled for January 22, a date that suddenly looks rather important for a sport trying to enter a new technical era without the opening rounds turning into a courtroom in race overalls.
Lowdon, though, is drawing a sharp line between Cadillac’s position and whatever debate is about to unfold in the room with the FIA.
“I can’t really talk for other people’s power units or how they’ve interpreted the regulation,” he said. “But to me, it’s extremely clear it’s there in black and white.”
There’s a self-interest here that’s impossible to ignore — and Lowdon doesn’t need to spell it out. Cadillac can’t afford to start its F1 life with its credibility tied to a grey-area interpretation from its engine partner, even if the rest of the paddock ends up doing exactly that. A new team already has enough to manage: building operational rhythm, learning how to turn parts around at race speed, and figuring out where the easy performance is hiding when the stopwatch starts to bite.
The last thing it needs is to be dragged into a political firefight over legality, even indirectly.
That’s why Lowdon’s tone matters. He’s not simply defending Ferrari; he’s positioning Cadillac as the sensible actor in the room — aligned with a supplier he trusts, and comfortable with the letter of the law as written. It’s a neat bit of early-season posture from a team that, by necessity, is trying to look like it belongs.
Lowdon also leaned into the relationship itself, underlining that Ferrari’s involvement goes beyond dropping a power unit in a crate and waving goodbye.
“I’ve worked with Ferrari a number of times before,” he said. “They’re great partners. It’s an iconic name in Formula 1 as well. All of the people in that team are real racers as well, and we welcome them into the Cadillac Formula 1 team as well.
“They don’t just provide us with a power unit, they provide us with some technical support in terms of people who join the team. It’s great to have them on board.”
That last line is telling. With the 2026 reset, integration is performance — not just the physical packaging of the unit, but the calibration, the operational habits, and the day-to-day problem solving that only comes from having the right people in the same room. Cadillac’s plan, at least in the short term, is to buy experience where it can, and there are few better places to do that than Maranello, even if Ferrari’s own reputation for serenity under pressure is… variable.
Away from the compression ratio argument, Cadillac has also been keen to get mileage under its belt. The team has led the way in pre-season running and completed a private shakedown at Silverstone last week, another step in a project that’s been defined as much by milestone management as by lap time.
“I guess we were first to fire up. We fired up last year, and now we’re shaking down,” Lowdon said. “Every time you do anything with a Formula 1 car, you’re learning. So, I’m just really happy that we’ve reached yet another milestone on this journey towards the start of the season.”
It’s classic new-team language, but it’s also accurate. The early laps aren’t about showing anything to rivals; they’re about identifying what breaks, what overheats, what doesn’t talk to what — and whether the whole operation can run cleanly enough that, when the real tests begin, the engineers can actually chase performance instead of putting out fires.
For now, though, the bigger story sits with the FIA and the manufacturers. If the 16:1 limit really is “black and white”, the meeting on January 22 should be a formality. If it isn’t, expect the first major political contest of 2026 to arrive before a race weekend has even started — with Cadillac watching closely, and very keen to keep its own house, and its Ferrari-supplied power unit, out of the blast radius.
