Cadillac boss destroys ‘fiction’ Valtteri Bottas rumours with emphatic public response

Valtteri Bottas future with the Cadillac F1 team has been the focus of recent media fabrications, and Graeme Lowdon has responded to set the record straight.

The rumour mill has seen unfounded suggestions emerge that Valtteri Bottas’ performance level has not met Cadillac’s expectations, and that the Finn could be replaced by the American driver, Colton Herta.

Valtteri Bottas’ Cadillac future rumours rejected by Graeme Lowdon

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• Graeme Lowdon dismissed Valtteri Bottas exit rumours as ‘complete fabrication’
• Cadillac says Colton Herta cannot replace Bottas due to super licence rules
• Lowdon warned social media misinformation is fuelling false Formula 1 speculation

The logic behind the rumours has suggested that, because Bottas was behind Perez on pace in Canada, the experienced veteran could be cast aside in favour of Herta, the team’s reserve driver who currently races in Formula 2, perhaps with immediate effect after Monaco if the Finn wasn’t more competitive relative to Perez in the next round.

As reported by PlanetF1.com on Thursday, these rumours swirling around Bottas are understood to be entirely without basis, with strong sources pointing to the “comedic” speculation as a “complete fabrication”.

One source with close knowledge of the situation compared the extent of the fabrication to that of the recent Esteban Ocon rumours that saw Ayao Komatsu deliver an expletive-filled riposte targeting the original source.

Cadillac boss Graeme Lowdon took the time to address the speculation swirling around his driver as he spoke to PlanetF1.com and other select media in an interview.

Asked for his response to the rumours, Lowdon shut down the speculation as being naive about what Cadillac is actually aiming to achieve this year in Formula 1.

“That’s actually very easy to do. I mean, there is no foundation of truth in any of the rumours at all,” he said.

“I can categorically say that. Just… where do I start on the rumours themselves?

“I’ll make it really, really clear factually, they’re completely incorrect. There’s no basis of truth whatsoever in any of them.

“Secondly, if we look at the job that both drivers are doing, both Valtteri and Checo [Perez], they’re doing way more than drivers in some other teams are having to do, because we’re constructing the team while we’re racing at the same time, and that’s a very unusual task.”

Lowdon explained that there is simply no way for anyone outside the team to truly understand the tasks that are being laid out for the drivers, as Cadillac aims to build its knowledge base and operational sharpness through this season.

“With all due respect, the outside world doesn’t know what we’re asking these drivers to do,” he said.

“Either session to session or race to race, and also what we’re asking them to do in terms of developing the car.

“It’s clear that we’re trying to get more pace into the car, although you know, I have to say that again, there were similar rumours before we even started racing, suggesting that we’d struggle to get within 107 per cent of qualifying.

“It was just a few fractions of a per cent in Montreal, where we missed out on advancing in the Sprint Qualifying again, so there’s not only no foundation of truth, but there’s no logic either to what anybody’s saying.

“In terms of rumours, and to be honest, I haven’t read all of them, but a few that I’ve read just don’t even seem to take into account some of the absolute basic rules of Formula 1, because some of them suggest they would put Colton in to replace Valtteri in the next few races, or whatever.

“Colton doesn’t have any super license points (sic), and to some extent, that probably says it all about the quality of some of the rumours, but I prefer not to focus on pointing out the obvious. I think the fans can see through all of that.

“Colton has a programme that he’s working to, Checo has a programme with us that he’s working to, and Valtteri the same; they’re all contributing in their own way to what we’re trying to do in establishing the Cadillac Formula 1 team.

“It’s very important to make it abundantly clear that there is absolutely not one shred of actual truth or evidence to any of the rumours suggesting that either Valterri is at risk or indeed that Checo might go to another team.”

While Lowdon stopped short of lambasting the fabrications in quite the same way Komatsu chose to address the rumours about him and Esteban Ocon having a major fall-out at the recent Miami Grand Prix, the Cadillac boss did explain how he feels the media landscape has evolved significantly since his last time in Formula 1, when he was CEO of Marussia in the early 2010s.

With social media, in particular, exploding during the intervening decade, misinformation spread by aggregator sites and publications without scruples, chasing engagement and clicks, means fiction can very quickly become ‘fact’ in the eyes of fans who can be hoodwinked into believing falsehoods.

This, Lowdon said, is very different from when he was last involved in F1.

“The landscape is changing, but that comes with the territory: we don’t live in a world where it’s sensible to stop people having a view, in particular, on sport,” he said.

“It is a shame if that view isn’t based on anything factual, because then, actually, it’s not a view, it’s just fiction.

“Do we, as a team, change the way we operate because of that? It’s really difficult.

“I’ve certainly seen it in the way things are reported now, compared to 15 years ago. The team that I was in back in the 2010s was one of the very, very first teams to adopt social media, and was way ahead in the metrics compared to the bigger teams back in the early days, when social media was seen as something that was a passing fad, or something like that.

“So it would be wrong to say that the landscape hasn’t changed because, clearly, it has, but, that said, I think the demand from the fans’ point of view fundamentally hasn’t changed in that people like to be told the truth and they like to be told things that they can rely upon, and I would like to think that that should form the basis of things.

“I’m not naive enough to say that that’s what actually happens, because certain people prefer to live in an echo chamber, and that’s just the nature of the landscape.

“I’ve always found that, from our point of view, as long as we are open and clear and communicate exactly what’s going on, then that’s the best policy, because then nobody can accuse you of anything if you just follow that basic rule.”

Additional reporting by Mat Coch.

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