Cadillac’s shrewd F1 driver choice is an injection of badly-needed experience

Cadillac’s shrewd F1 driver choice is an injection of badly-needed experience

The disappearances of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez from the Formula 1 grid at the end of last season undoubtedly caused much disappointment among their fanbases.

Not least because each represented nations with a strong motorsport heritage – Finland and Mexico – which were left without a driver on the grid.

Today’s confirmation the pair will return with new F1 team Cadillac next year will therefore put smiles on many faces. Not least the promoters of the Mexican Grand Prix, which are facing a race without a home driver this year.

Nonetheless, it’s fair to say both drivers have had their chance in F1 already. The pair have racked up over 500 grand prix starts between them.

Cadillac has handed F1 comebacks to two known quantities. Anyone hoping the team would use at least one of its seats to hand a debut to an overlooked talent or up-and-coming junior racer might feel underwhelmed by the return of two drivers who already spent over a decade racing at the top flight.

Bottas and Perez were team mates to 2021 championship rivals Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen respectively. Each spent several years alongside team mates who won title after title but enjoyed considerably less success themselves, Perez winning six races, Bottas 10.

Both lost their F1 seats at the end of last year after disappointing campaigns. Bottas failed to score a single point last year for Sauber, while his less experienced team mate Zhou Guanyu took their only top 10 finish. Perez’s form deteriorated at Red Bull, and he slumped to eighth last year while Max Verstappen clinched the title, though neither of his subsequent replacements have fared any better.

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But although both appear to have missed their best chances to win an F1 title, it’s their longevity and experience of driving for top-drawer teams which makes them perfectly suited to Cadillac. Do not underestimate the near-vertical learning curve they face in entering an all-new team into F1.

Bottas scored his 10th and final win in 2021, with Perez third

The days when a handful of new teams would arrive each year are in the distant past. Teams do not step up to F1 from the junior categories as they once did. When powerhouse Prema squad chose to expand this year they chose IndyCar instead of F1.

Modern F1 teams may rebrand with depressing regularity but all-new entrants are incredibly rare: Cadillac will be the first in a decade. Given the resistance their entry faced from Formula One Management, it’s remarkable they made it at all.

The existing teams have built their operations up over decades. Cadillac faces an enormous challenge to get on a par with them, particularly given how late official confirmation of their entry came. The level of competition is astonishingly close at the moment, with the majority of the grid routinely covered by less than a second.

On top of that, all teams have a radically different set of regulations to adjust to. There is a genuine sense of the unknown about how next year will unfold, and having two drivers experienced enough to bring the cars home and grab points when possible will be a serious advantage for the fledgling squad.

Haas, the last new team to enter F1, did so with a considerably less experienced line-up. Romain Grosjean had started just 83 races; junior team mate Esteban Gutierrez 38. At the end of their first season, Haas replaced Gutierrez with the more experienced Kevin Magnussen.

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2026 F1 drivers and teams

Experience was Cadillac’s priority and there were no better alternatives available on the market. Indeed, they were fortunate to have two such highly qualified options open to them who didn’t already have race seats.

Among other drivers who have left F1 recently, only Daniel Ricciardo had a comparable level of experience and success (257 starts, eight wins), and he is not interested in returning. Other names Cadillac could have gone with, such as Mick Schumacher or Zhou Guanyu, offered much less experience.

It’s a shame to see Formula 2 champions like Felipe Drugovich and Theo Pourchaire still without an F1 seat to their names, but Cadillac was always going to be the least likely destination for them. There’s no substitute for experience and Cadillac have just bought as much of it as they can.

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