‘More than surprises’ – Perez opens up on Cadillac F1 shakedown
Sergio Perez became the first driver to lap with a Cadillac F1 car at Silverstone
Nearing the end of its very first week on track as a Formula 1 team, Cadillac’s “debugging” shakedown may have encountered more problems than surprises, but Sergio Perez would rather have it now than in Melbourne.
10 months after Cadillac was given final approval to become Formula 1’s 11th team, the American outfit took to the test arena with its very first Formula 1 car, powered – at least for now – by Ferrari.
Sergio Perez on Cadillac shakedown: More than surprises, problems
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Cadillac opted to take to the track on the first day of the behind-closed-doors Barcelona shakedown, a five-day outing during which the teams could run on any three of the five.
Bottas put the first laps on the Cadillac F1 car, covering 33 laps on Monday before Perez added a further 11 to the tally. Mercedes on the same day covered 149 laps.
Cadillac again shared the track with Mercedes on its second day of testing, Mercedes’ final, with Perez spending the entire day in the yet unnamed Cadillac F1 car.
He put 66 laps on the board, which is a full race distance at the Spanish Grand Prix. Mercedes did 168.
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Perez concedes there have been a few hiccups along the way as Formula 1’s brand new team learns not only about its own car, but also the Ferrari engine that will power it in its debut campaign.
“More than surprises, problems,” he said.
“Problems on all kinds of fronts – with the engine, with the car, with a few electronic issues.
“But I’m glad it’s happening now, and of course we still have a lot of work ahead of us, especially as a new team.
“So yes, these are exciting times.”
Despite the problems the Mexican driver, having completed 66 laps on Thursday before handing the car over to Valtteri Bottas for the final day of running, declared it was a positive day as Cadillac made progress.
“We were able to do a lot of running and gathered a lot of data. But I think we’re making progress in virtually every lap. So yes, it was a positive day.
“Hopefully we’ll have another positive day with Valtteri.”
This week’s Barcelona was meant to be a behind-closed-doors test, lap count and lap times kept secret from the world as the teams learned not only about their new cars, but also the new engines.
For Cadillac, though, the learning is far greater.
It’s not just a case of a new Formula 1 car, Formula 1 is a brand new sport for the American giant. While the technical regulations are new for all 11 teams, for Cadillac the entire operation, never mind the car, is new.
The Special Edition livery right where it belongs 😍 pic.twitter.com/NzSo0WMFFY
— Cadillac Formula 1 Team (@Cadillac_F1) January 29, 2026
It had team principal Graeme Lowdon billing this week’s three-day outing as a “debugging” exercise
“The key thing for us is exactly that, debugging,” Lowdon said. “We could have run more laps, or we could have looked to solve certain problems, make sure that they’re solved and tick those off the list. And that’s the most important thing.
“We’re very lucky this year in that we’ve got a shakedown week this week and then two tests in Bahrain, so we’re very much focused on using this time in Barcelona to shake down all these systems, iron out all of the various gremlins and then be on the front foot for Bahrain.
“For us, it is very much a shakedown week this week. We had a really good day at Silverstone last week, but now we’re just working steadily through all of the different car systems.
“As you know these cars are incredibly complicated, but I’m really, really pleased with the progress that we’ve made. We’ve got more work to do this week but all in a structured way, so I’m really happy with the way things are shaping up.”
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