The 2026 F1 Hungarian GP ended in further disappointment for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas, whose race came to an early end after another brake-related issue forced him to retire.
The Finn has now recorded four retirements in the last six rounds, continuing on a frustrating run of results. Bottas remains one of only three drivers yet to score a point this season. However, as the newest team on the grid, Cadillac has inevitably endured a fair share of struggles throughout their campaign so far.
Speaking in the print media zone after his retirement, Bottas reflected on the opening lap, where he briefly found himself ahead of George Russell after the Mercedes driver suffered an engine software issue that affected his revs off the line.
“No, no, they [Russell] got me pretty quickly. I thought I had quite a good line outside of Turn 1, but then in the end flew back to the place where we started from.
“It seemed like we had a couple of tenths of Williams in the first stint and then the brake issue started. We had to start doing lift and coast. Then we thought we kind of recovered. The team told me to reduce the lift and coast and then suddenly everything was on fire.”
“Clear” that Cadillac still need to improve brake cooling
This was not the first time Bottas and Cadillac had encountered brake-related issues this season. After introducing a new front brake duct for the Hungarian GP, the Finn said the team is making progress in addressing the problem but acknowledged that further improvements are still required to increase the car’s cooling capacity.
“Yeah, the new front duct too. We’re trying to address this issue, trying to prevent it from happening, but clearly we still need more airflow in the brakes. And that’s clear from today. But again, quite extreme conditions, extreme track.”
Teammate Sergio Pérez also failed to reach the chequered flag, retiring from the race and extending the team’s run of double retirements. When asked whether the team understood the issues affecting the Mexican driver’s car as well, Bottas explained: “Yeah, we still don’t know the cause of it.”
“I don’t know what happened there with the suspension, but now, second time, he has DNF’ed with the suspension. It’s very clear where we’re going to improve and fix issues to start facing races.”
Explaining that the excessive brake temperatures caused internal components to burn, this ultimately led to a complete brake failure on his in-lap and forced him to stop the car against the wall at pit entry.
“Yeah, so the brakes just get too hot and it gets to the point that inside everything starts to burn. And that obviously destroys everything.”, he said.
“Actually on the in-lap I lost the brakes fully because I think the brake lines must have burned. So that’s why I had to stop the car against the wall.”
Bottas weighs in on issues with blue flags during the F1 Hungarian GP
Blue flags and backmarkers were a key issue throughout the race, affecting several frontrunners as lapped cars took longer than expected to move aside.
Addressing the issue, Bottas said: “I had a couple of times, they flashed. I only had like two times the blue flag flashed very quickly, but there was nobody behind. I guess there was an issue with the system. We had the virtual mirror.”
“You know, we have the gaps to some cars behind, so obviously we kept an eye, but I’m sure the team would have let me know as well.”
