F1 team rejected TWICE by Otmar Szafnauer for team principal job

Former Alpine and Aston Martin team principal Otmar Szafnauer has revealed that he was offered the chance to take up the same role with Cadillac's new F1 team.

The Romanian-American engineer was well regarded at Aston, working with the organisation for a dozen years through its Force India and Racing Point eras, before leaving for Alpine before the 2022 season.

That partnership was a more brief one, departing after 18 months as the Enstone based team reshuffled some key parts of their staff – with Alan Permane, now Racing Bulls' team principal, leaving around the same time.

Szafnauer revealed on the High Performance Racing podcast this week that Cadillac management approached him multiple times before they had a confirmed entry on the grid, leading to him turning them down to remain at his then-existing job.

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Szafnauer: Andretti offered me Cadillac job years ago

Asked in a fan Q&A 'why has Cadillac not hired Otmar?', he revealed: "Truth be known, they did ask me a couple of times before they had an entry.

"I remember Michael Andretti calling me around Christmas saying 'where are you?' and I said I was in Florida, he said 'I'm in Florida too, let's meet up for dinner' and he asked me to come along and be their team principal. But they didn't have an entry!

"And I couldn't, at the time, leave a team principal job that I had to go to a team that didn't have an entry. It didn't look like they were going to get an entry, and then lo and behold they did."

Lowdon backed for Cadillac role by Szafnauer

Graeme Lowdon ended up being the man at the tiller for the American entry when they launched into F1, his arrival being confirmed in December of 2024 ahead of the team's 2026 debut.

That debut has been fruitless in terms of points so far, with the new team struggling much as any new entry does, and Lowdon was removed from his duties in something of a surprise move in August this year.

Szafnauer also revealed that after he made it clear that he wouldn't be heading to an uncertain Cadillac project, he was asked for his opinion on the former Virgin and Marussia man, saying: "After that they came to me and said 'what do you think of Graeme Lowdon?'

"I honestly said 'look, Graeme's a safe pair of hands, he's honest, straightforward, you could do a lot worse'. And Graeme did a good job getting them in and starting the team."

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