Helmut Marko reveals Sergio Perez phone call after ‘conservative’ Cadillac F1 move

Signing former Red Bull driver Sergio Perez for its debut campaign in Formula 1, Helmut Marko reckons Cadillac has taken the “conservative path” in a tried and tested F1 race winner.

But Perez, he says after their phone call following the announcement, is “motivated” for the task ahead as the American outfit prepares to become Formula 1’s 11th next season.

Sergio Perez will join Valtteri Bottas at Cadillac

After much speculation about team principal Graeme Lowdon’s long short-list ahead of Cadillac’s debut F1 campaign, the team confirmed its F1 2026 line-up earlier this month when it announced experienced F1 race winners: Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas.

Bottas joins Cadillac F1 on the back of 246 starts and 10 wins, all of his wins coming in Mercedes colours, while Perez has made 281 starts with six wins.

He secured five of those during his five-year stint with Red Bull, only to be dropped by the team after the F1 2024 season when he fell from second to eighth in the Drivers’ Championship and cost the team the Constructors’ title.

The Mexican driver has since taken heart – and confidence – from the struggles of his successors.

Replaced by Liam Lawson, the New Zealander lasted just two races before he was dropped in favour of Yuki Tsunoda, while the Japanese driver has managed just seven points in his 12 Red Bull starts.

That’s a long way off from the 152 Perez scored in 24 races last year – 6.3 points per race compared to 0.58 points.

As Perez’s successors stumbled, it became evident that the 35-year-old was not the problem at Red Bull. And Cadillac came knocking.

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Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss revealed he spoke with Perez’s former employer, Red Bull, about the 35-year-old’s struggles to gain a clearer picture of the situation.

“We did take a lot of time to talk to people at Red Bull and get information and feedback,” he said as per The Race. “The process was lengthy and thorough from that standpoint.

“And what that means is, having looked through all that, we feel very good about Checo, his desire to be in F1, to make a statement, to show the performance that he has, and put that last season or so from Red Bull in the rear view mirror.”

But while Marko hasn’t exactly applauded Perez’s comeback, he revealed he has spoken with the former Red Bull winner since the announcement.

“I spoke to him on the phone and he is motivated. If he’s motivated and the car fits, then he’ll certainly be back at the level he once was,” he told Keine Zeitung.

He, however, called the Mexican driver’s signing a “conservative path” as Cadillac F1 will know “what you’ve got”.

However, Perez’s former team-mate Max Verstappen was more encouraging ahead of Perez’s return to the grid with the Dutchman one of the first to congratulate the 35-year-old.

He believes Perez has a lot to offer F1’s newest team.

“He has driven for a lot of different teams, so he knows a lot of things about how teams work,” Verstappen said in Zandvoort. “And every single team, of course, works a little bit in different ways.

“So that’s already, I think, a very interesting trait that sometimes, you know, is nice to understand what people are good at, or where some teams are worse at. That’s how it goes.

“Also, the behaviour of the cars. He has been in a lot of different regulations, a lot of different rulesets, where other things were allowed, some were not allowed, got banned.

“So yeah, to have that general understanding of how a great car is, a car that’s not fantastic, I think it’s very valuable for them to start, because he has worked with many big teams.

“Hopefully, that will push them forward in the beginning, because it’s never easy to jump into Formula 1 and be competitive, of course, straight away. But yeah, we’ll see how that goes.”

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