The Cadillac MAC-26 Formula One car with its Ferrari-powered engine looked a strange sight as it took to the track in FP1 at the US Grand Prix. Colton Herta was once again in their car replacing Sergio Pérez, with a view to adding another point in his chase for an F1 super licence.
Yet with the huge cage aero-style rig attached to his car, there were concerns the American would fail to complete the 100km required for him to qualify for his 39th super licence point as the car trundled around doing straight-line aero tests.
In the end, Herta shed the rigging and set about putting in the laps required on a run plan to help the American team understand the tyres better. His 21 laps meant he’d racked up some 115km and is now just one point short of his super licence total required.
There are no more plans announced for Herta to be given one final FP1 outing to claim his final point, but since the announcement the American driver will not compete in F2 next season, it is highly likely Cadillac will hand the Californian another session, potentially next week in Mexico.
Building from Scratch: A Tough Rookie Year
Unlike the other ‘new F1 team’ this year — Cadillac has sought to build their operations from scratch, whilst Audi bought out the facilities and staff of the Swiss-based Sauber Racing Team. But it has been a tough learning curve for the new F1 racing outfit, who are the only team yet to score a point this season.
They ditched their team principal, Graeme Lowden, replacing him with Marcin Budkowski, and during a media session at COTA, the Polish-born engineer revealed that Cadillac had yet to settle on their driver line-up for next year.
The seasoned current line-up of Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas were believed to have been signed on multi-year deals.However, no formal announcement has been made, although paddock sources suggest the Mexican has a definite two-year deal, whilst Bottas has ‘an option’ for 2027.
Performance Disparity and the 2027 Dilemma
The Cadillac plan for this year was to use all sessions of the Grand Prix weekends as learning opportunities. This, of course, may explain the disparity in performance between the drivers during the early part of the year.
Valtteri Bottas is 9–8 ahead in terms of qualifying, but his head-to-head with Pérez in Grand Prix finishing positions stands 13–4 in favour of the Mexican driver. Whilst Cadillac have stated they will at some point recruit a US-born driver,even should Herta get the final point he requires for his F1 licence, it would be a gamble to put him in the car for next year.
A year of travelling with the F1 team, sitting in on debriefs, and understanding how the race team works would benefit the talented Californian driver. This kind of left Cadillac with few options for 2027. That was until Esteban Ocon announced he was a “free agent” for next season at the Bahrain GP held in Malaysia.
This was confirmed by Haas the following week in Singapore, and there can be no doubt talks will have taken place between Cadillac and Ocon’s management team.
Budkowski on Pérez’s Drive and Determination
On Friday, Budkowski was asked about how he felt his drivers had performed this season. “For a driver like Checo [Pérez], who has a huge amount of experience and a number of races, I can tell you he doesn’t behave or drive like a driver who’s anywhere close to retirement,” Budkowski replied.
“He’s pushing very hard behind the wheel. He’s pushing us very hard also behind the scenes in the debrief rooms and outside, and regularly texting me and other members of the team to push us to improve. He’s hungry, he’s motivated, and that’s actually really, really good to see. He does it in his own style,” added the Cadillac boss.
When it came to evaluating his other driver’s performance this year, Budkowski was direct: “We have two drivers. One is more hot, and one is probably more cold, if we could say from there. And they’ve both pushed the team in their own particular ways, but Checo is pushing us very hard.
“Just looking at the way his body language is on the grid when he gets his helmet on, and he gets in the car, he’s getting ready for a fight. There’s a lot of fire. There’s a lot of motivation there.”
The Cadillac team principal appeared to forget about his other driver as he continued to wax lyrical over Pérez. “So it’s really impressive for a driver of this experience. At the same time, we were getting his feedback and his input in terms of being an experienced driver.”
Handling Market Inquiries and Ocon Links
Budkowski was pressed directly on the potential of Cadillac recruiting the available Esteban Ocon, and his reply clearly indicated this was indeed the case. “As a team principal, and I’m sure it’s the same with my colleagues, you’re getting calls and contacts from every driver or driver manager that is on the market,” he said.
“So there are a number of drivers and managers who have contacted me. I’m not going to say who it is or who it isn’t, but pretty much all of them that are on the market have been in touch, as you’d expect. I think it’s the last place here, as you can imagine, where I would communicate anything about the driver line-up. My marketing and communications department would kill me if I did that!”
Bottas’s Struggles and Schumacher’s Advice
Looking at the comparative performance of Cadillac’s drivers, Valtteri Bottas has had 7 DNFs to Sergio’s 5. In Singapore,Bottas struggled to finish the race, and hitting a car setup miss was partly responsible for him finishing a lap down on his teammate.
Ex-F1 racer and now pundit Ralf Schumacher is in no doubt what Cadillac should do. “I would definitely sign Ocon immediately,” Schumacher told Sky Deutschland. “I think the Bottas [F1] story is over now. He’s a really nice guy, so this shouldn’t be taken personally, but from a purely sporting point of view I would definitely choose Ocon.”
Herta’s F1 Dream: Waiting in the Wings
Then again, at the age of 26, Colton Herta must feel he is in the prime of his life. Will he wait another year for his Formula One dream — and can Cadillac guarantee it won’t be yet another nightmare season?
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No, he didn’t, since nothing has changed, as both drivers are under contract also for next year; hence, nothing will change unless they decide otherwise & this is also the only scenario in which a separate announcement would be necessary, but as long as the direction of travel doesn’t change, a separate announcement of drivers already under contract is unnecessary.
Another fact is that he doesn’t even have the final say on Cadillac’s driver matters, but Towriss, who’s been clear that they’re happy with their current lineup & aren’t looking to change, not to mention Budkowski started in the team deep into the season, so he should’ve asked Towriss first before speaking in this manner in public that contradicts him, as well as Bottas, who’s definitively stated on more than one occasion that he has a contract also for next year.
This whole speculation has been unfounded & Budkowski hasn’t helped matters, even though the team doesn’t even need to announce their lineup per se, just like a separate announcement has been unnecessary for Mercedes, & was for Audi, who still did so anyway.