Cadillac driver Valtteri Bottas reflected on the team’s outing at the 2026 Japanese GP, calling the weekend “positive” overall despite his own struggles in the race.
As a fledgling F1 operation, Cadillac happily welcomed a second consecutive double finish in Suzuka. The team still ran into some trouble during the weekend as energy deployment issues in qualifying hampered the drivers in qualifying, leaving them a lowly 19th and 20th—though ahead of closest rivals Aston Martin.
Bottas puzzled by lack of pace in Japanese GP
On Sunday, Bottas was the only driver to attempt a start on the hard tyre. Speaking after the race, he conceded the gamble didn’t pay off, especially as he pitted to make an early switch to mediums, just before the Safety Car was deployed on Lap 22 following Ollie Bearman’s dramatic crash.
“Yeah, well, it definitely didn’t feel great with the hard, but then actually even with the medium I was quite far off,” Bottas told the media.
The Finn expressed confusion over his lack of race pace, regardless of tyre compound, and flagged this as something to analyse post-race.
“I need to have a look, because basically I’m just killing the tyres,” he said. “It’s pretty hard to understand at the moment. I was expecting better race pace, because actually even the Aston pulled away initially, so I need to have a look.”
Bottas ultimately recovered to finish P19; Perez crossed the line in 17th and generally appeared to have the edge on his teammate across the race weekend.
Pleased with second consecutive double F1 finish
Despite the disappointment of his individual performance, Bottas acknowledged the significance of another morale-boosting double finish for Cadillac at the Japanese GP.
“Yeah, for sure,” Bottas said. “Another double finish is really good, but now we just need to wait for the upgrades.”
However, he pointed to some inconsistencies in car performance and behaviour.
“Also analyse this weekend, because we see some… over the weekend, differences between the two cars. Sometimes one has more power, sometimes one has more load, so I think the quality also needs to be a bit more consistent.”
Bottas agreed that it’s a “pretty steep” learning curve for the team week to week, though he added: “But still overall it’s all positive. Again, we’ve had a much more clean weekend, less issues, so yeah, getting there step by step.”
