After a successful start to its Formula 1 adventure, Cadillac now faces the difficult task of having to develop better than the established teams
If Cadillac was aiming for a respectable Formula 1 debut, it has largely achieved it: both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas took the chequered flag in two consecutive races in China and Japan.
In Suzuka, Perez and Bottas beat the struggling Aston Martins to keep themselves off the back of the grid. The duo were around 2.3 seconds behind the leaders in Q1 and a second behind the rest of the wide 2026 midfield. This was a relatively encouraging step forward, but at the same time exposed the next challenge the team now faces.
Cadillac has scaled its first summit, only to find that an equally daunting peak awaits on the other side. Making it onto the 2026 grid was just the beginning; now the team needs to effectively beat its rivals in terms of further development in order to join the battle for the midfield.
First upgrade a success, now comes Miami
The team brought its first new parts to the start in Japan – a revised diffuser for more downforce at the rear. Nevertheless, it still has to find over a second on teams such as Alpine, Williams, the Racing Bulls and Haas. Cadillac is preparing further upgrades for its home debut in Miami, but so is everyone else.
“It’s been very promising, but on the other hand we also look at the lap times and see that we need to develop,” says Perez. “Developing means outperforming our rivals in terms of development rate, which is quite a difficult task in Formula 1.”
“That’s the biggest challenge Cadillac faces as a team, because these teams have been here for a while. We really have to be at our best and now is the time for all of us to prove that we can do it as a team,” said the Mexican.
“But I think we have a good structure, the team is well set up and hopefully we can make significant steps as we start to develop. I think we are on track at the moment. It’s still early days, so I’m happy with where we are at the moment.“
Perez continued: ”At the same time, we’ve made a lot of progress from the first race to the second, and that’s what I want to continue to see. We all want to see massive progress and we want to close the gap from now on.“
Perez expects Cadillac to be the team that ”can get the most out of this break” as it also needs to optimize other areas, such as trackside procedures and systems. Just over a month ago, the team had never run two Formula 1 cars at the same time.
Symonds “confident we can deliver”
Cadillac technical advisor Pat Symonds is confident that the US team – which is largely operating out of Silverstone this year while a flagship headquarters is built in Fishers, Indiana – has the right tools to upgrade the car despite its status as a start-up team.
“I think we have a very robust process for that,” says Symonds. “That’s actually very impressive with the team. We have the budget for it. Within the budget cap, we know what we have to do. We already have a pretty aggressive development program planned. I’m pretty confident that we can deliver that.”
The first upgrades in Japan, just three races into the season, gave a small glimpse of this. According to Symonds, the new diffuser worked as expected, delivering more downforce at the rear without upsetting the balance of the car.
“All we’re trying to do is simply put more downforce on the car,” he says. “And like most people, we want to make sure that the load on the rear remains constant. We had a good balance between high-speed and low-speed sections and a good balance between low and high fuel on board.“
”So if we can get some more downforce on the car now, I think we can start to push a little bit into that midfield.”
