Perez says F1 midfield ‘not too far away’ from Cadillac

Sergio Perez says the midfield runners are “not too far away” from Cadillac in its debut season and a major upgrade at the Miami Grand Prix could put the team in the mix.

Cadillac has downplayed expectations heading into 2026 as it has been having to build an entire F1 team from scratch at the same time as developing a car for the new regulations. The team has run largely reliably and sits above Aston Martin in the constructors’ championship at this early stage of the season, but Perez hopes a gap to the rest of the field can be closed with updates.

“It was quite interesting when I was following,” Perez said. “I was racing at the time with the Williams, the Alpine – I could see that they are not too far away; they're just able to consistently keep finding pace and pace and pace. I think it's clear that we need a second now and I really hope that we are bringing a big upgrade for Miami and I think that will be the biggest test for the team.

“I think we've been progressing every grand prix. [Suzuka] is the first grand prix that more or less everything has been straightforward, apart from the deployment issues I had [in qualifying]. So I really hope that we can make that step to be in the mix with the midfield.”

As well as an increase in downforce, Perez says there is still performance for Cadillac to find from its Ferrari power unit now that it has three races’ worth of data to analyze.

“I think there's a lot of areas but at the moment the main one is load – it's where we are lacking the most. Balance itself is not too bad, it's just that we are lacking the load.

“I could see encouraging signs. I think there is some work to do also with the deployment – I could see that they were deploying differently to us, a few of the teams. Something to work on, but I think the main thing is that we need load and obviously we are bringing in the upgrade in Miami and it will be the biggest test for us.”