Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc’s former race engineer Xavier Marcos Padros has been recruited by Cadillac as technical director of its LMDh sportscar project. The Spanish engineer revealed some details of his new role to F1Technical’s senior writer Balazs Szabo.
Ferrari announced ahead of last year’s Imola F1 race that Charles Leclerc would work with a new race engineer. His previous engineer Xavier Marcos stayed with the Scuderia, but moved into another position outside the team’s F1 department.
Marcos Padros started his career in motorsport as a race engineer for the BNC Racing Team. He got his first taste of Formula One while working for the fledging HRT team as performance engineer from 2010 to 2012. After the team folded, he joined Williams Racing as a performance engineer for Felipe Massa.
Seeking a new challenge, Marcos Padros decided to move to the United States to become chief race engineer for the NASCAR team Richard Childress Racing in 2015. The Spaniard then returned to Formula One with Scuderia Ferrari, first as a factory based race engineer for 2018 and then became the race engineer for Charles Leclerc when he joined the team in 2019, and he has remained with the five-time F1 race winner ever since.
After Ferrari had announced that Marcos would leave its F1 department, his former performance engineer Bryan Bozzi started to support Leclerc as race engineer.
It has now emerged that Marcos Padros will take up the new position within the Cadillac V-Series.R programme, which straddles the World Endurance Championship and the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
In his new role, the Spaniard will join Cadillac as its new technical director and will oversee “all aspects of car engineering, performance and development.”
With his new role marking the first time that Marcos leads an entire department, Marcos explained that he will have to develop a much wider focus than in his previous roles.
“My role within Cadillac Racing will be focused on all aspects of engineering, car performance and development to further support its FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship programs that have expanded by one car in each series for 2025.
“I am looking forward to working with the Cadillac Racing engineering group, teams and our chassis partner Dallara to quickly build championship-winning programs.”
Pushed on to explain what skills he can carry over from Formula One to endurance racing, Marcos added that “motorsport has always pushed the boundary of automotive engineering and technology, and I have been fortunate to be part of it.
“The experience I have gained as a race engineer, performance engineer, chief race engineer across multiple motorsport series, including F1, and the knowledge I have acquired by working with many talented and skilled individuals over the years has contributed to how I approach my work and relate to people.”
Asked whether his work will be a factory-based role, the Spanish engineer explained that he will travel to most of the IMSA and WEC races.
“I will, in my new role – and with the Rolex 24 At Daytona it is still very new – travel to most, if not all, FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races. Initially, it is getting to know the personnel in both series on the Cadillac Racing and team side and from the sanctioning bodies.
I’m looking forward to contributing to the WEC and IMSA programs with the goal of victories and championships,” Marcos concluded.
