Sergio Perez Admits Cadillac’s ‘Lot of Disappointment’ Forced a Reset as He Reflects on Building an F1 Team From Scratch

• Sergio Perez says Cadillac’s recent run of form has brought “a lot of disappointment” after the team failed to build on its early progress
• The Mexican admits Cadillac has “not improved as much as we hoped” and that the team had to review how it does things after a run of stalled development
• Perez remains motivated fighting at the back of the field after four years racing at the front with Red Bull, crediting the same intensity he found competing for wins

Sergio Perez has admitted Cadillac needed to take a hard look at itself after a run of results he described as a genuine disappointment. Speaking on the official F1 podcast Beyond The Grid, the Mexican said the team has not developed at the rate it expected in its debut season, and that the shortfall forced a review of how the operation works.

Cadillac made their grid debut at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and have swung between encouraging signs and setbacks all year, from a best result of P13 for Valtteri Bottas in China to a string of reliability failures that have so far kept the team off the scoreboard entirely.

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“There’s a lot of disappointment”

Perez, who first arrived in Formula 1 back in 2011, has been open about how much the Cadillac project means to him after four years racing for wins at Red Bull. “I really feel like I’m part of this project, of this new era, building something from scratch,” he said. “Of course, I want to win championships and be fighting at the front. But if you don’t have that opportunity, I think Cadillac, it’s something that motivates me a lot because it’s like building a team from scratch and starting basically from last to see how far we can go together. I feel like here I’m much more than a driver.”

That sense of ownership has not softened his verdict on the team’s recent form. “I think the last few races have been a disappointment,” he said. “There’s a lot of disappointment because we haven’t been developing. We haven’t been improving. Us being a new team, is what we should be doing, like every time. So I felt like there was a bit of stalling in the last few races and that’s why we had to review how we were doing everything. Obviously being a new team, there’s a lot of things that we are constantly learning.”

Perez was careful to present the review as a search for answers rather than a sign the project has stalled for good. “I don’t think we have improved as much as we hoped for,” he said. “But the most important is we understand and we look at our processes, why it hasn’t come, why we haven’t improved in all those different areas. Because it’s not only one thing. Being a new team, there’s a lot of things that are in there and I can see them. If we improve our load, our ride, a lot of things, all of a sudden, we are not that far. We are at the back, but half a second, one second, will change our life completely at this stage. I feel like for us being a new team, it’s in there. It’s possible.”

A new boss and a target for 2027

Cadillac’s search for answers has coincided with a change at the top. Marcin Budkowski replaced Graeme Lowdon as team principal ahead of the Dutch Grand Prix, and Perez said he is hopeful the shake-up can accelerate the progress the team badly needs before its second season.

“I want to see more progress, closing the gap to the teams ahead of us, be able to mix with them more in the races,” he said. “Being able to close that gap will only allow us to start next year in a much better shape. Obviously, I’m looking forward to work with Marcin, see his leadership and I think there’s a lot of room for improvement, not just on performance, you know, operationally, pit stops, strategy, tyres, there’s so much still. It’s only our 10th, 11th race in our history. So there’s a lot of things. I want to see much more progress closing up the gap and I think that will give us a massive boost to start next year.”

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Fighting at the back after four years chasing wins

Perez spent four seasons at Red Bull racing for podiums and Grand Prix wins before joining Cadillac’s new project. Asked whether his motivation changes when running near the rear of the field instead of the front, he rejected the idea outright. “You’re still at Formula 1,” he said. “You’re still at the pinnacle of the sport. You’re still working with the best engineers in the world. You are competing against the best drivers of the world, although you are far from them.”

He pointed to his relationship with team-mate Bottas as one source of that motivation. “For example, my team mate is Valtteri,” he said. “He’s one of the most successful guys in the current grid. He’s one of the fastest out there, so to keep up the challenge with him, it’s that sort of motivation. Although we might be fighting for no point, you’re still talking the same language to the engineers, to the tyre group, everything. It’s crazy, but it doesn’t matter if you are fighting for the championship or you’re fighting for P18, the language is very similar and a couple of seconds can change your life a lot on development.”

Perez also pointed to Aston Martin’s own trajectory as proof of how quickly things can change in Formula 1’s midfield. “With Aston Martin, they were fighting with us one week before and then in Hungary, they made a massive jump and probably in two, three months’ time, they’re fighting at the front and they’re talking the same language,” he said. “That was something I thought when I was coming back, ‘the motivation is not going to be there because I will be fighting at the back’, but it hasn’t been the case, I’m very happy that I’m still in Formula 1, talking the same language to my people around me.”

Cadillac remain without a point after their opening rounds, but Perez’s message is that the gap he is chasing is measured in tenths, not seconds, and that closing it before 2027 begins is now the whole focus of the project he helped build from nothing.

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Written by

Jack Renn

Jack Renn is an editor at F1 Chronicle and a veteran motorsport journalist with 25 years of experience covering Formula 1 and international motorsport. A member of the Association Internationale de la Presse Sportive (AIPS), the global body representing accredited sports journalists, Jack has spent his career reporting from paddocks and press rooms across the F1 calendar. His work spans race analysis, technical insight, and in-depth features, giving readers authoritative coverage grounded in decades of firsthand experience at the highest level of the sport.

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