Cadillac confirms root cause of recurring brake failures after Hungarian GP

Brake overheating remains Cadillac’s defining problem

Cadillac has confirmed that overheating brakes are behind the reliability problems that have repeatedly disrupted its debut Formula 1 season, including another failure at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The sight of a smoking Cadillac has become increasingly familiar in 2026. Rather than outright pace, reliability has emerged as the team’s main obstacle, with both Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez affected by the recurring brake issue.

Both drivers retired during the opening laps of the Austrian Grand Prix, where intense heat compounded the problem. For Bottas, that failure followed earlier brake-related exits in Monaco and Barcelona, underlining the scale of the pattern rather than an isolated malfunction.

Cadillac introduced new brake ducts for Hungary in an attempt to address the issue. However, the problem returned. Bottas’ left-front brake caught fire on lap 15 of the 70-lap race, forcing him to use the pit wall to help slow the car before parking it and tackling the blaze himself with a fire extinguisher. No marshals were immediately on hand.

Perez also failed to finish, although his retirement was caused by a separate front-suspension problem. The result marked Cadillac’s second double DNF of the season, after Austria, while Bottas remained one of only three drivers yet to score a point in 2026.

Bottas explains the failure’s wider impact

Speaking after the race, Bottas pointed to the heat and the corner-heavy Hungaroring as especially severe conditions for the brakes. Cadillac’s revised front ducting had been designed to prevent a repeat, but it did not provide enough airflow.

“That new front ducting was trying to address this issue and trying to prevent it from happening, but clearly we still need more airflow in the brakes,” Bottas said. “That’s clear from today. But again, it was quite extreme conditions [and an] extreme track.”

He later explained that the overheating did not stop at the braking system. “The brakes, they just get too hot, and it gets to the point that inside everything starts to burn,” he said. “And that obviously destroys everything.”

Bottas added that he lost the brakes completely on the in-lap, believing the brake lines had burned and forcing him to stop the car against the wall.

With the summer shutdown now underway before the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23, Cadillac has limited time to respond. Bottas does not expect a performance upgrade, and said he did not think the team would have a major solution ready for Zandvoort, although he hoped for progress on the brakes.

For wider context from the same Budapest weekend, see our Hungarian GP blue-flag failure report.

“At some point, there’s going to be a point that we’re going to focus 100% for next year,” Bottas said. For Cadillac, the debut season remains defined by a reliability problem that new brake ducts have yet to solve.