Sergio Pérez is confident that Cadillac can progress and bridge the gap to the midfield across the 2026 F1 campaign. During a print media session on media day at the Suzuka Circuit, the Mexican driver provided a transparent look into the team’s season and the effort required to compete on the Formula 1 grid.
Building momentum after a significant milestone in Shanghai
Reflecting on the races leading up to the 2026 F1 Japanese GP, Pérez suggested that the Chinese GP was a significant milestone in the team’s season, bringing up hopes to make significant steps in the future. In Shanghai, Pérez secured P15, while his teammate Valtteri Bottas came in P13.
Despite this being “quite an achievement” considering the technical struggles other teams have faced, he acknowledged the current lack of car speed.
“Yeah, definitely. I think that now I think China was very encouraging for the whole team to finish with both cars. It’s already quite an achievement considering that not many teams have been able to do that. So that’s been very promising.”
While the Chinese GP was motivating for the team, Pérez sees a need for development. For Cadillac to be able to compete in the midfield, they must “out-develop” the other teams, a task which he described as one of the hardest challenges in Formula 1 as they are brand new and trying to build.
“But on the other hand, we also look at the lap times and we can see that we need to develop. And develop means out-developing our rivals, which is quite a hard thing to do in Formula 1. But I believe that we have a good structure, the team is in a good place. And hopefully when we start to develop, we can make significant steps.”
Tracking progress from Melbourne to the Japanese GP
The season opener at the 2026 F1 Australian GP turned out to be a tough hurdle for Cadillac, with Pérez finishing P16 and Bottas failing to finish the race completely.
Despite the challenging first race, the Cadillac driver is confident that the team remains on target. He highlighted the significant progress made between the first and second races as evidence that the team is moving in the right direction, even though they are in the early days of their journey.
”I think we are on target at the moment. It’s still early days. So I’m happy where we currently are. But at the same time, you know, we did progress a lot from first race to second race.”
Pérez on the logistical sides of the Cadillac F1 entry
During the media session at the 2026 F1 Japanese GP, Pérez spoke openly about the internal structure of the Cadillac team. He explained that transitioning a massive organisation into a functional F1 team requires a lot of hard work and because Cadillac is the newest team on the grid, a certain amount of chaos still exists within the team.
”I think it’s really good. We obviously have to take that break wisely and use it properly as a whole team. Track organisation, factory organisation. You know, we are a new team so we still see a lot of chaos around.”
However, he is positive that the team will use the upcoming break to balance their systems, work hard on putting the data together and develop before the Miami GP.
“So we are able to put our systems together and obviously push extremely hard now with three races, a lot of data. We know which areas we need to push on development. I think, I mean, it’s good that we have a bit of a break in a way. But the factory will be flat out completely. You know, I expect that Cadillac will be the team that will be able to take the most out of that break. For us it’s pretty important.”
