‘A lot of progress in a short space of time’ – Why Cadillac had their ‘strongest race so far’ in Japan

Cadillac have come a long way already in 2026, even though the Formula 1 season is just three rounds old.

The recent Japanese Grand Prix weekend was their best collective performance yet and, in the space of less than a month, the American squad have already made major strides. The fact that both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have finished two successive races is no mean feat.

While it may be a matter of baby steps, the weekend in Suzuka marked a significant step forward in terms of progress, which puts them in an exciting position to build on heading into the rest of the year.

What happened in Japan?

Cadillac arrived in Japan with the hope of replicating their latest achievement from the Chinese Grand Prix, where they ticked off their first double car finish despite making contact on the first lap. Things didn’t get off to the greatest start, however, as Perez sustained damage in FP1 after he and Williams’ Alex Albon made contact.

The fixes were relatively straightforward and crucially, neither Cadillac driver suffered any reliability problems throughout the Free Practice sessions – this allowed them to instead focus on their performance and set-ups, and they headed into Qualifying feeling encouraged.

Unfortunately, issues with energy deployment limited the team to P19 and P20 on the grid with Perez leading. Although they found themselves 1.279s away from getting into Q2, the team took it as a positive that they outqualified both Aston Martins for the first time.

They then opted to split the strategy for the 53-lap race with Bottas becoming the only driver on the grid to start on hard tyres, while Perez joined everyone else on the medium compound. The gamble didn’t fully pay off, especially as the Finn pitted shortly before the Safety Car was deployed, but both cars managed to improve and take 17th and 19th at the chequered flag.

What did the drivers say?

The fact that Perez finished the race on the same lap as winner Kimi Antonelli was a major boost, prompting him to label it “our strongest race so far this year” in post-race quotes shared by Cadillac.

“We’ve made a lot of progress in a short space of time, and we can be happy to get two cars past the finish yet again,” he added. “Yesterday we had some issues with the deployment and today it felt like we were on top of it. We were clearly faster than Aston Martin and we can see our pace is getting stronger.”

Bottas, on the other hand, admitted that he “was lacking a bit of performance” that prevented him from challenging Fernando Alonso for P18, but he also accepted that the whole round “was much cleaner with fewer issues” compared to Australia and China.

He said: “We’ve learned a lot that we can use to improve for the next race. We now head into this gap in the calendar after our first three races with the opportunity to analyse everything learned so far and spend more time developing the car.

“The mood is good in the team as we fully focus on preparations for our first home Grand Prix in Miami.”

The challenges ahead for Cadillac as a new team

Cadillac are the first new F1 outfit since Haas made their debut back in 2016 and, although everyone is facing the challenge of adapting to the 2026 regulations, they are learning more than most with every session that passes. It’s no small feat coming into the sport as a brand-new entity.

The usual teething problems surrounding reliability are to be expected when you build an F1 car from scratch, but Cadillac are also made up of a group of people who haven’t actually worked together for that long.

While their drivers have years of experience under their belts, as do many of their employees, they are all still in the process of learning how everyone else likes to work. They need to reach a point where their efficiency can step up drastically because discussions in debriefs and over the radio will be understood so much faster.

Now they know exactly how a race weekend unfolds, Cadillac need to work on optimising the Ferrari power unit they have been provided with for this season. They have the useful benchmarks of Haas, and of course the Scuderia themselves, both of whom are extracting far more performance than Cadillac currently are.

What’s next?

If they can iron out their early reliability problems – which they’re already showing signs of achieving – then the next stage is to focus on maximising what they have in the power unit and chassis. That’s easier said than done, but Team Principal Graeme Lowdown has emphasised that there are already development plans in the pipeline.

“I’m particularly pleased to see another significant step forward by the whole team in terms of execution and reliability,” he said after the Japanese Grand Prix. “We have an upgrade package coming for Miami and I’m excited to see what that can deliver — thank you to all the teams in Indianapolis, Charlotte, Silverstone and Germany for their continued hard work.”

Like all of their rivals, Cadillac have April to review everything they’ve learned from the start of the season and implement any improvements before the Miami Grand Prix, which is set to take place from May 1-3.

It remains to be seen how significant a step forward they can take with their planned upgrades, but, considering there starting point, any progress will be valuable learning.

“I think the big test for the team comes in Miami,” Perez concluded while speaking to the media after the race in Japan. “We’ll see what we are able to do and how we are able to develop. I think that’s the biggest test we’re facing so far.”