Cadillac F1 Driver Sergio Perez: Miami 'Will Be the Biggest Test For Us'

“It was quite interesting,” Perez said after that race. “When I was following, I was racing at the time the Williams and 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 [of pace] now.”

However, the Mexican driver remained upbeat and confident that more progress was coming.

“I think I could see encouraging signs,” he said. “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 [downforce] load. And obviously we're bringing the upgrade to Miami, and it will be the biggest test for us.”

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Like Cadillac, all teams are bringing major upgrade packages for Miami, and the long spring break has given everyone an extra opportunity to pour resources into development and getting new parts to the track. There’s a much bigger picture in Cadillac's case, with so many lessons learned in all areas of the team operation over those first three races, and much to improve.

“We obviously have to take that break wisely and use it properly as a whole team,” Perez noted. “In terms of track organization, factory organization. We had a new team, so we still see a lot of chaos around. So if we are able to put our systems together and obviously push extremely hard now, with three races, a lot of data, we know which areas we need to push on development. It's good that we have a bit of a break in a way, but the factory will be flat out completely. I expect that Cadillac will be the team that will be able to take the most out of that break, because for us, it's really important.”

The bottom line is that Cadillac had to get its car out on track as early as possible at all costs. It needed to run early—only Audi’s 2026 contender appeared before—because the team needed to get out on track and start gathering data. Being late for testing, like Williams and Aston Martin, was not an option.

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Running on track early means that designs have to be signed off early, and parts manufactured early. And when you’re doing the whole thing for the first time, with unproven systems and production outsourced to suppliers, you have to leave even more time and be ultra conservative with deadlines.

In other words, Cadillac fielded a basic “launch car” package over those first three race weekends that was signed off well before those of other teams. And thus the step from that to what we see in Miami could potentially be a significant one, because V2 will represent months of learning in the wind tunnel, and reflect the lessons learned and data gathered in those early races.

Of course, the opposition is a moving target, and it remains to be seen by how much the team can close the gap to any of those ahead.

“We have to look at the lap times, and we can see that we need to develop,” said Perez. “And develop means out-developing our rivals, which is quite a hard thing to do in F1. But I believe that we have a good structure, the team is in a good place, and hopefully, when we start to develop, we can make significant steps. I think we are on target at the moment. It's still early days. We all want to see massive progress, and we want to start closing up the gap right now.”

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