Despite Friday issues, Cadillac still hopeful of Q2 with upgraded car

Cadillac believes it can target a spot in Q2 during qualifying for the Austrian Grand Prix after bringing a major upgrade package, despite encountering a number of setbacks during its Friday running.

Sergio Perez suffered electrical problems in both practice sessions and consequently missed significant track time, while Valtteri Bottas had a strong start to Friday but then also had his running curtailed by a dragging floor. Chief technical officer Nick Chester says the new developments appear to have made the car more competitive, and a first Q2 appearance for Cadillac could be on the cards.

“It's obviously early days,” Chester said. “We had FP1 and we didn't get so many laps. Yes, from what we can see [the upgrade] looks like a bit of a step forward. But let's see tomorrow through FP3 quali where we get to.

“Around here it's always super, super tight. We'll be trying very hard to get into Q2. But it's going to be a mad tight grid, I'm sure.”

Explaining the problems faced by the drivers, Chester admits one was due to team execution while the other was down to reliability.

“[For Perez] it's an electrical issue causing the car to cut. We're working through it, so we've changed some of the components," he said. "We're now working through more components so that we can get ourselves ready for FP3.

“The floor on Valtteri's car, we had a build issue with the mid-front on his car. So it did let the car down too far.”

Perez said he felt an improvement from the new parts in the little running he managed in the first practice session, but the true extent of the progress remains unclear.

“I want to start with the positive, which is that we seem to be closer,” Perez said. “Valtteri had a good session this morning. We could see a bit of light in there.

“Unfortunately, running was very limited for me today. We don't really know what the issue is on my side, so we're going to be changing pretty much everything on the electrical side to make sure that for tomorrow we can have a clean day, because we have a lot of work ahead of us.

“I think it's hard to compare anything, but I was on a good lap until I had these issues this morning with my first sector. But you never know, unfortunately. Hopefully tomorrow we are able to find out where we really are and we can have a much straighter day.”