– Cadillac’s Formula 1 debut was quite encouraging, but according to Sergio Perez, the team now has a “huge urgency to find performance.” Cadillac, which entered the championship in 2026 with Ferrari customer engines, was recently able to challenge the struggling Aston Martin Honda team – which Perez describes as a “great motivation” for the racing team.
Read more Red Bull: Not yet on the same level as McLaren and Co.
At the Miami Grand Prix, the Mexican even fought in the midfield at times and finished 15th in the sprint, while he advanced to 13th place in the Grand Prix before the competition struck back. Ultimately, both races ended for Perez in a three-way battle against Aston drivers Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. In both cases, he was narrowly beaten by the two-time world champion.
“We have fun with them, especially the fight against Fernando is always a great thing because he drives very aggressively but very fairly,” commented Perez.
“We had a bit too much tire degradation and chose the hard tires – in hindsight, I would have preferred to go on the soft tires. So we need to analyze that. There is still a lot to do, but I am confident. I think we are moving in the right direction. I see at times that we can be close to the midfield once degradation sets in, but the others are simply able to significantly increase the pace again.”
“It is still a long season, but of course we have a huge urgency to find performance because we know Aston Martin will improve, and we don’t want to be left behind.”
The development battle against Stroll and Newey
After Cadillac successfully put its first Formula 1 car on the track on January 16, the team now faces an equally big challenge in the development race. This is especially true given Lawrence Stroll’s massive investments in the Aston team, which has poached top engineers from the competition in recent years.
Will Cadillac only follow behind in 2026?
In terms of infrastructure, Aston Martin’s brand-new simulator has been operational for about a year – the team announced it on March 13, 2025, but team principal and chief technical partner Adrian Newey later explained that it “did not run properly before April.” It will be a crucial trump card for the Silverstone team to improve the AMR26.
Read more Official: Opel launches new electric SUV with Leapmotor technology
While Cadillac consistently missed the Q2 cutoff by about 1.3 seconds in the first three season rounds, the gap in the sprint qualifying in Miami was only 0.3 seconds. However, this deficit swelled again to 1.7 seconds on Saturday as the MAC-26 slowed down while most other cars were able to improve compared to the sprint.
“Understanding this package will be key to making further progress by Canada. We need to understand it better and try to find better solutions,” added Perez. “We don’t have much time, but one of the short-term things we need to address is tire wear. We have some ideas there, but the biggest task for the team in the coming weeks will be to bring all departments together.”
Bright spot in the pit stops
A positive aspect in Miami was a smooth tire change for Perez: “The pit stop today was fantastic, really a very, very good job by the team. That shows that we have mastered the stops. We need to deliver like this in many different areas in the coming weeks.”
In terms of pit stops, Cadillac was previously the second slowest team in Melbourne, measured by time in the pit lane. In China, they were by far the slowest; the best time was 25.793 seconds when Perez stopped in the sprint. Every other team was at least 2.6 seconds faster – except Audi, who failed at their only stop of the weekend due to a broken impact wrench.
Also in Japan, Cadillac was again the slowest, but Perez’s Miami stop – 23.228 seconds from entry to exit – was faster than the times of Ferrari, Haas, and Audi in Florida. This is a significant improvement by the mechanics, even though there is still room for improvement: the fastest stop was secured by Mercedes with George Russell at 22.042 seconds.
Read more Carlos Sainz: Formula 1 qualifying remains a cause for concern
