Tauris: The next phase of development will be even more important.

      The summer break in the championship gives teams and drivers not only the opportunity to catch their breath and regain strength. It is also a suitable moment to summarize the first half of the season, analyzing everything that has happened since the beginning of the year.

      This is important also because there are still 12 races ahead, which will take place over 15 weeks, and because preparations for the next season are already beginning.

      “All expectations were shattered when the lights went out in Melbourne,” recalled Dan Tauris, executive director of TWG Motorsports and head of the Cadillac program in Formula 1, in an interview with Racer. “Literally everything was very bad. To be honest, that surprised me the most.

      Apparently, I thought there would be some kind of 'grace period' during which we could improve something and build the team – but nothing like that happened. But now an interesting moment has come, especially since we are summarizing the interim results of the first half of the season.

      We had to create this team very quickly, build the car, get to the start, and we have already earned respect, but now a kind of transitional period begins, when we need to find the answer to the question: how should we prepare for the future?

      The team needs to improve reliability, our car must confidently handle any tracks, we need to establish all working procedures – in short, we must have everything necessary to compete in Formula 1, enduring the pressures of this chaotic and long season…

      I believe we need to take a very important next step, and everything must be done quickly and well to get on the path of proper development. It’s great that we have reached this moment, but even more important is the next phase of development, when in the process of evolution our caterpillar must turn into a butterfly.

      There may still be reliability issues, suppliers may let us down, causing everyone to feel additional pressure. It is possible that some of the appointments we made will not yield the desired effect. Every month, the atmosphere in the team changes because new people come in, and we constantly analyze how this affects the team’s work.

      And all this happens while we are simultaneously trying to finalize the car and make it competitive. The difficulty is that all these numerous processes occur in parallel, and we are expected to act without any failures. But achieving this is almost impossible.

      We anticipated many problems, but not all of them. It turned out that some ideas related to organizing the team’s base and the team itself were not entirely correct. I think we need to implement some reforms, as we continue to bring our project to the necessary level, so that we can say: the Cadillac team competing in Formula 1 looks exactly like this, and it has this trajectory of development…

      Speaking of results, I don’t feel any particular disappointment. Rather, we should talk about some missed opportunities. But I repeat, we are here to compete, grow, and develop. And if we are satisfied with everything, if we allow ourselves to relax – then we don’t belong in Formula 1. But I can assure you that our mindset is completely different…

      We are now working on the 2027 car project much more confidently. Moreover, our arsenal of tools has significantly changed, and now we have both the necessary tools and data that we didn’t have when we built the 2026 car. Together with all of Formula 1, we are preparing to make a big leap forward next year.”