Major Cadillac F1 update as Valtteri Bottas, Sergio Perez race engineers confirmed

Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez’s new Cadillac race engineers for the F1 2026 season have been decided, PlanetF1.com can reveal.

Former Aston Martin performance engineer Carlo Pasetti will act as Perez’s race engineer, with ex-Alpine man John Howard set to work alongside Bottas.

Cadillac F1 confirms Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez race engineers

The F1 2026 season will mark Cadillac’s first season in Formula 1 after its entry was officially approved earlier this year.

The team announced in August that Bottas and Perez will make up Cadillac’s first-ever driver lineup, with both men returning to competition after sitting out the 2025 campaign.

Perez stands as the most successful Mexican driver in F1 history having claimed 11 grand prix wins in 281 starts for the likes of Sauber, McLaren Force India/Racing Point and Red Bull.

Bottas, meanwhile, collected 10 wins in a five-year stint at Mercedes across 2017-21 in between stints at Williams and Sauber.

Ahead of the team’s debut season, Cadillac has confirmed to PlanetF1.com that the race engineers for Perez and Bottas are in place.

Pasetti, who joined Cadillac after a stint at Aston Martin, will serve as Perez’s race engineer.

Meanwhile, Howard will act as the voice in Bottas’s ear after a spell as Pierre Gasly’s race engineer at Alpine.

Howard spent almost 15 years at Alpine having originally joined the team – then competing under the banner of Renault – in 2010.

He worked his way up through the ranks at Enstone, being promoted to the senior performance engineer in late 2022 before becoming Gasly’s engineer.

Howard’s promotion to a race engineer role came after Karel Loos landed the role of head of trackside engineering at Alpine.

He left Alpine in April before linking up with Cadillac in his new role in August.

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As reported by PlanetF1.com, Bottas carried out a seat fit with Cadillac in the aftermath of the season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix after leaving his role as Mercedes’ reserve driver.

That came after Cadillac completed its first on-track test outing with Perez in November.

Perez took to the wheel of a black-liveried Ferrari 2023 car at Imola as Cadillac, which will compete with Ferrari customer engines from 2026, performed a real-life track test for the first time.

As reported by PlanetF1.com at the time, sources indicated to PlanetF1.com that Perez’s fastest lap was in the 1:16s, faster than the 1:17.2 time that circulated on social media.

Cadillac announced earlier this month that its F1 2026 livery will be unveiled in an advert during the Super Bowl – one of the most watched sporting events in the world – on February 8.

Additional reporting by Mat Coch

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