Cadillac F1 Proved It Deserves a Place on the Grid. Now, It Has to Find Performance

The Cadillac Formula 1 team achieved one of its main targets in Australia in getting one of its two cars to the checkered flag. Both would have been even better, but on a day when one of the Audis didn’t even take the start due to last-minute technical gremlins, a Red Bull expired in a cloud of smoke, and both Aston Martins were pulled out of the race to preserve their power units for the upcoming race in China, it was a decent outcome.

This was a weekend of new experiences for the team. Friday was the first time it had run two cars, as testing is restricted to one; and then, as it ran through its first free practice sessions, qualifying and race, more boxes were ticked. It was a climb up a massive learning curve.

There was something of a conservative approach throughout. Both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas started on the hard tire, with a view to keeping their options open. Early in the race, Bottas pitted to change steering wheels after experiencing some issues; it was the team’s first-ever live pit stop during a race, and to make things simple the team chose not change tires at the same time, something that even surprised the driver. The sight of the Finn parking trackside shortly afterwards was the biggest disappointment of the day, but it was a call from power unit supplier Ferrari in response to falling fuel pressure that could have led to damage.

"We were there, we were racing with some cars,” said Bottas. “We kept Aston behind; it’s not like, initially, falling miles back. That's encouraging, good to see. So overall, even though I'm standing here [retired], I'm still proud of the whole team, and I'm very happy to be back. And it's this is part of the learning curve, we've just got to keep solving issues. And the only way is up from here.”

Valtteri Bottas.

Perez, meanwhile, kept going, surviving a brush with Liam Lawson that led to him losing a bargeboard at one stage. The team also did its first proper tire stop with him, and then did another near the end–basically for practice, because it didn’t make any difference to his position. He crossed the line in P16, and last—and three laps down on the winning Mercedes.

“It would have been nice to get both to the flag,” team principal Graeme Lowdon told Road & Track. “Especially for the drivers, as they made a big commitment to the team. But I am happy. It's a difficult game. And to be able to come in, even just start the Grand Prix—you could see [with Audi] is a challenge. This game so difficult. Melbourne 2026 is the start of a journey for what I think is going to be a really, really good team.”

Dom Gibbons - Formula 1//Getty Images

Lowdon can justifiably be proud of his guys for getting through a hectic first weekend without major drama. “Friday was the first time we'd ever run two cars, and it is exponentially more difficult,” he said. “But I think all of the work that we did in preparation, the simulated race weekends and everything—today we really reaped the benefits of that.”

That preparation involved the team, and specifically the engineers and strategists, running “virtual” races back at base—following the whole process of generating and analyzing data as if it was a real event, in an effort to get everyone into the rhythm. “If we hadn't have done that, I think this would have almost been impossible,” said Lowdon. “But the team managed. We were presented with a number of challenges in the race, but I think it would have been a struggle if we hadn't prepared. We're learning all the time, and a lot of this stuff we won't go through again.”

The team includes a lot of experienced people—none more so than executive technical consultant Pat Symonds, Ayrton Senna’s engineer during the Brazilian’s first season in 1984. He later won World Championships with Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso. He knows what it takes to find success in F1.

“We set various objectives to the team,” Symonds told Road & Track after the flag. “The first one was to arrive in Melbourne in a professional manner. I think we did that. I think the team is very professional, it's very well turned out, it's very well prepared, both at the track and our backup at the factory. We'd like to have finished with both cars, so we got halfway there. I think overall, we should be pretty proud of what we've done.”

Symonds confirmed that, for all the preparation, there’s no substitute for actual racing. “You learn so much when you come to a race that you don't always learn in testing. So I think we also now have very clear idea of what we need to do over the coming months. And yeah, it's going to be hard work, but we've got a good basis.”

Operationally, it was a good weekend. But there’s no escaping the fact that the cars were the slowest in the field, and by some margin. Perhaps the best metric was the 1.9-second gap in Q1 between Perez and the quickest Haas with the same customer Ferrari power unit. That’s not a small gap, although the team was a bit closer to the likes of Alpine, Williams, and Aston Martin. Given the sheer effort involved in getting on the grid at all, it’s perhaps to be expected—for example because key parts were signed off early just to ensure the car was ready to run on time.

Development now starts in earnest, as Symonds noted. “We've got more stuff coming for Japan. We have more stuff for Bahrain if it happens. That's exactly what this is: the foundation from which we need to work on.”

Lars Baron//Getty Images

Lowdon, meanwhile, insisted that the overall Melbourne performance was not relevant. “We can forget the result, to some extent, this weekend,” he said. “The key thing is, the feeling that I'm getting, is that this team's got so much potential and is such a solid platform to build upon. It's really quite exciting."

He suggested the team is already doing better than some had expected, given that it was starting from zero. “What's very clear is, the performance already is way ahead of what people were saying we would have. There were all sorts of concerns about a new team coming in—and, this, that, the other. And that gap is something that we can go after now. We kind of know where we are now.”

“We want to be racing consistently and, obviously, finishing with both cars. Lots of positive things that we can build on," he added. "And I think it's good that we're going again next weekend as well—because we keep some intensity, which is needed.”