Bottas Sees Cadillac Progress Despite Pointless Start to Maiden F1 Season

Bottas highlights Cadillac’s progress

Cadillac may still be waiting for its first Formula 1 point, but Valtteri Bottas believes the new team has made meaningful progress during the opening half of its maiden season.

Cadillac entered the championship in 2026 as Formula 1’s 11th team, pairing the experience of former Mercedes driver Bottas with former Red Bull driver Sergio Perez. Its debut campaign has included reliability problems and multiple retirements, yet Bottas says those setbacks have not overshadowed the improvement made behind the scenes.

“We knew there were going to be challenges,” Bottas told F1.com. “There have been a few races that we haven’t finished with technical issues. We knew that it was possible and that is part of the learning curve.”

For Bottas, the priority is not to dwell on those failures but to convert them into lessons. He also believes Cadillac’s development has been visible in several key areas, with the car gaining pace and the team improving its reliability.

“The main thing is we just need to learn from those and move on,” he said. “But otherwise, honestly, no big surprises.”

A team still learning how to operate

Bottas said he expected Cadillac to improve throughout the year, and feels that expectation has been met. The Finn pointed to progress both on track and within the organisation as the new operation continues to establish itself.

“I knew that we could improve throughout the year – we can see we have done,” Bottas said. “We’ve been able to pick up the pace [and] we’ve been able to get the car more reliable. How the team operates, we’re getting better and better. It’s been a great journey so far, but there’s still a lot of work to do.”

That process has also involved building working relationships. Bottas explained that only a couple of Cadillac’s team members were familiar to him when he joined, meaning much of the early effort focused on understanding how to work effectively with new colleagues and extract the best from the group.

He described that as a significant part of starting a new team, while stressing that the situation has continued to improve. Bottas also said his relationship with Perez has developed positively, adding that it has been nice to work with his team-mate.

The organisational transition will now continue under new leadership. Cadillac recently announced that Graeme Lowdon had been replaced as team principal, with former Alpine executive director Marcin Budkowski taking over. The change comes as the team continues the development described by Bottas and works towards turning its early progress into results. Read more about Budkowski’s appointment at Cadillac.