Cadillac’s steady F1 start shows promise as Perez targets summer breakthrough

Cadillac has begun its time in Formula 1 as many expected it would: towards the back. However, early signs appear positive about its potential.

Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez have been lapping towards the rear of the field in the opening races, but in judging Cadillac’s season so far, it is worth keeping its future in mind.

All signs are there for Cadillac improvement after steady start

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New teams tend to take one of a few well-trodden paths once they enter Formula 1, and not many involve winning immediately.

Instead, teams either start from the bottom and stay there (apologies to those involved with the 2010 entries, HRT, Lotus and Virgin), establish themselves and climb up the rankings (Haas), start with huge ambitions which ultimately fall short (Toyota), or prove to be a stable enough long-term platform which can eventually upset the norm (Jaguar-Red Bull Racing).

All of the above are obviously still possible for Cadillac, but the rhetoric behind its entry is such that, unlike a significant proportion of new teams, it should get the backing to push on in Formula 1, even more so given the sheer amount of resource that has already gone into the project.

TWG Global and General Motors have taken on what TWG Motorsports CEO, Dan Towriss, described in February as an “arm’s length” style arrangement in which TWG funds the team which carries the Cadillac name on the Formula 1 grid.

Cadillac will eventually fully operate out of several bases, with a Silverstone factory opened in 2024 to work alongside GM’s motorsport facility in Concord, North Carolina, as well as an all-new state-of-the-art base in Fishers, Indiana, which Towriss confirmed would be due for full completion in the first quarter of 2027.

That does not come cheaply, even more so in this current era, but the cost cap should provide Cadillac with a way to not get significantly outspent by their rivals and, as a result, it should offer a more level playing field in the years to come.

Such is the belief in its rate of progress that Perez is already targeting the team’s first points finishes by the summer break in 2026.

“It’s obviously a big task, with the gap that we currently have,” he elaborated in China.

“This team, it’s new, but it’s very different to all the other new teams that have come to the sport. This team has all the resources in place and has all the experience as well. There’s a lot of experience in the team. There’s a lot of people that have done this for more than 20 years.”

In the here and now, however, if anyone had offered TWG and Cadillac a place away from the bottom of the Constructors’ Championship, qualifying three seconds off the pole position lap in brand-new machinery, many of those assembled at its multiple bases would have taken that in a heartbeat.

Yes, that comes partly by capitalising on the troubles experienced at Aston Martin, but Bottas and Perez have crossed the line more times between them than the Aston Martin pair, completing precious laps and gathering data as the Cadillac team experiences its first-ever race weekends as a full unit. Not only that, but in the team’s third race, it qualified off the back row on outright pace.

This is not intended to be placed in a patronising tone towards Cadillac, of course. As is the case in any motorsport organisation, the staff will all be racers through-and-through, and plenty of experienced names joined the project at an early stage, but getting any group of people to work together cohesively will naturally take time.

On top of that, engineering consultant and former ‘Team Enstone’ stalwart Pat Symonds explained that after testing that running two cars instead of one is not just doubly difficult, but four times tougher operationally on a team.

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However, Bottas was the team’s only retiree at Round 1 in Australia, which at least shows that, despite the MAC-26 not being the quickest car in the field, it is at least reliable at this stage.

He said as much in Suzuka after the chequered flag: “We have two complete races that we’ve finished. We have lots of data.

“We have upgrades coming to Miami, now we have more time to develop the car, to analyse everything. So the mood is good. We’re making progress.

“I wish Miami was sooner. You know, it’d be nice to be soon in the car, but it will come.”

Likewise, Perez added his hopes for the upcoming rounds, making it obvious that around a second per lap would bring the team much closer to the midfield battle.

“When I was following, I was racing at the time, and the Williams, the Alpine, I could see that they are not too far away,” Perez said in Japan. “They’re just able to consistently keep finding pace and pace and pace.

“I think it’s clear that we need a second now. I really hope that we are bringing a big upgrade for Miami, and I think that will be the biggest test for the team.”

Wanting a full second’s worth of improvement is one thing, delivering it is quite another.

However, if there would be any time you would choose to reach for that lofty a goal in a short timeframe, it would be at the beginning of a new regulation cycle, given the opportunities still in play once teams converge on the best design paths. Often, larger gains can be made early on before upgrades begin to be worth hundredths or thousandths of a second.

As a Ferrari customer until 2029, before Cadillac and GM is due to bring its own factory power unit to the grid, Cadillac can be confident that engines are unlikely to be an issue from a long-established supplier – though Lewis Hamilton has previously acknowledged the Ferrari PU being down on power compared to the class-leading Mercedes.

But as early signs go from the season so far, it’s five Grand Prix finishes from a possible six between its drivers, cut its qualifying gap to the pole time by six to seven tenths from Australia alone, and all the noise is that it is doing all it needs to do to head towards the next steps.

It can’t always be said for a backmarking team, but perhaps watch this space later in the season.

2026 season rating so far: 7

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