Sitting at the bottom of the 2026 F1 standings at the Mid-Season mark, Pit Debrief delivers a review of how Cadillac have fared in their first campaign in the series.
Heading into the season, they faced a massive challenge with an enormous change in the regulations, although getting Power Units and other parts from Ferrari helped ease things a small bit.
Cadillac 2026 F1 Mid-Season Review: 5/10
Coming into the most high-level category in Motorsport, the Cadillac F1 Team were always heading into 2026 realistic about the position they would be in this year.
At the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, they were unsurprisingly the slowest cars in Q1, even if Aston Martin and their struggles was the big story of that weekend. Sergio Pérez was just over 3s off to the fastest time in Q1, showing the team did a very respectable job with their car and were miles within the 107% rule.
As the season has progressed, upgrades to the car have worked. It allowed them to consistently outpace and jump ahead of the Adrian Newey-led team as Aston Martin waited to bring an enormous update package to Hungary last time out. While the AMR26 made a significant step in qualifying (even if Stroll made a mistake on his last Q1 lap) and race pace at the Hungaroring, Cadillac finished up just a couple of tenths behind the Williams drivers in Q1.
The one big downside for Cadillac has been reliability. Suspension failures and overheating brakes in hot conditions on multiple occasions means they are down on race running and important data. This is an important area to tackle for 2027.
Race pace has also been more difficult as a lack of downforce means they are degging at a higher rate in longer stints as they try to stay in touch with the likes of Williams and Haas.
Nonetheless, it has been a pretty decent start to life in F1 for Cadillac as we have reached Mid-Season in 2026. While the rest of this campaign could see them at the back pretty much everywhere now where Honda’s engine deficit is not exposed, there is positive signs for the years to come.
Sergio Pérez Mid-Season Review: 5/10
On his return to the sport in 2026, Sergio Pérez faced a lot of questions as to whether he belonged on the F1 grid again following a horrible run of form post-Miami in the 2024 season. Based on the first half of the current campaign, he has answered those questions convincingly.
Over the course of the 2026 F1 season so far, the six-time Grand Prix winner has been the better of the two Cadillac drivers. In qualifying across the GP and Sprint formats, the Mexican leads 9-5 and is on average a tenth quicker than his Finnish stablemate.
While Sergio Pérez has always been a solid qualifier throughout his career since his debut at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix, it has been his race pace that has always looked a bit stronger, and he has been incredibly good at managing the Pirelli tyres over longer stints.
Although it is fully hard to judge whether he is still amongst the best in this area because he has been only really racing his teammate and the Aston Martins on the odd occasion in 2026, the 36-year-old has clearly held the upper hand on Valtteri Bottas this year, both in terms of race pace and looking after the tyres.
One big negative
However, he does lose a point in our ratings due to what happened at the Monaco GP. Thanks to crashes and an unacceptable glitch regarding pit lane speeding that affected George Russell in particular following the final results, the Mexican driver threw away a point for Cadillac as he was out of position on the grid for the standing start following the red flag.
Instead, Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso got it. Monaco is likely to be team’s only shot at bagging points in 2026. He also tagged the Spaniard in the Sprint at Silverstone that sent the Aston spinning, while Pérez spun himself with a slightly clumsy move on the first lap in Shanghai against his teammate.
Nonetheless, Cadillac driver Sergio Pérez can be pleased with his performance as the 2026 F1 Mid-Season has reached us. He will be hoping to continue to hold an advantage over Valtteri Bottas in the second half of this year.
Valtteri Bottas Mid-Season Review: 4/10
Just like his stablemate, Valtteri Bottas returned to F1 in 2026 after a year away as Sauber dropped him upon the conclusion of the 2024 season. He returned to Mercedes in a reserve driver role and helped Kimi Antonelli during the Italian’s rookie campaign in 2025.
On his full-time return, it has been a mixed bag. While he has faced plenty of unreliability like Pérez, it is fair to say he has looked half a step to a step behind the Mexican so far.
Nonetheless, on the evidence of recently, the Finn’s regular comments earlier in the season about something not feeling fundamentally right in the car were bang on. There has been very encouraging signs recently to back up his words.
In the last three Saturday qualifying sessions at Silverstone, Spa and in Hungary, the Finn has been the quicker Cadillac driver over a single lap. A qualifying deficit of 2-9 is now 5-9 at the summer break.
At the Hungaroring, the race pace for the 10-time Grand Prix winner was also hugely encouraging as Bottas pulled a gap of 4s to his Mexican teammate before the braking issues in hot conditions struck once more.
Nonetheless, even when he outqualified Pérez at Silverstone and Spa, the Mexican driver gapped him by 7s and 3s before either boxing for the first time (Britain) or retiring (Belgium).
As previously mentioned, race pace and tyre management is the strongest area of the driver of car #11, and it is something Bottas has struggled with the most in his career, as Lewis Hamilton ruthlessly exposed when they were teammates at Mercedes.
A step required
While Valtteri Bottas difficult start deserves understanding considering the issues he was having earlier in the season with his MAC-26, he must deliver more weekends like Hungary over both a single lap and long runs to be absolutely certain of driving in F1 in 2027.
