Cadillac set clear targets for first year in F1

LAS VEGAS :Cadillac team boss Graeme Lowdon says Formula One's newest team will set out clear targets for their debut next season, focusing on execution and development rather than headline results.

Speaking about his expectations, the team principal said it was impossible to set realistic championship targets before seeing how Cadillac's car compared with rivals.

"Next year, it's impossible at the moment to predict anything championship-wise," Lowdon told reporters at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

"Absolutely nobody knows where they're going to be next year."

Lowdon said Cadillac F1 would focus on factors within its control in year one, such as operational discipline and how much performance it can extract from the car it has designed.

"We've got some obvious targets for next year - that we have everything ready and that kind of thing," he said.

"We'll be measuring all the things that we're in control of and how we execute those. That's the key thing for next year. How do we operate?"

Backed by the resources of General Motors, Lowdon said the project was structured to compete at Formula One's cost cap and grow quickly, rather than settling for a long-term role at the back of the grid.

"With the backing that we have, both financially and in terms of technology and vision and everything else, we've said before that our ambitions are limitless and they should be," he said.

"We'll be in a position to operate at the cost cap and so we want to - irrelevant of where we start next year - move forward and develop in a constructive way."

The British ex-Marussia chief executive acknowledged the scale of the challenge facing a new entrant competing with established outfits, but said Cadillac F1 was hiring experienced staff and built for the