Cadillac F1 completed a private three-day shakedown at Barcelona-Catalunya, running 164 laps. The program prioritized systems checks and reliability rather than outright pace, with engineers treating the outing as a debugging and durability exercise.

Valtteri Bottas, who returned after sitting out 2025, drove during the program and said the team had made rapid progress but still faced a “mountain to climb” to reach the competitiveness and reliability needed for its debut. His quickest Barcelona time was 4.572 seconds — roughly 6% off the test leader but within the 107% qualifying cutoff — suggesting the car could plausibly make the grid even if substantial development remains.

Cadillac has cleared several early technical milestones: a full-car dyno run in December, a Silverstone filming day in January, and the Barcelona shakedown. Those steps helped temper concerns even though the team recorded the slowest combined running across the five-day test programme and the second-lowest lap total among teams present.

Team principal Graeme Lowdon and senior staff note that, despite broad individual F1 experience, the group has only about 11 months of working-together time and some key facilities remain unfinished, leaving operational and development gaps to close.

Engineers collected data for simulator correlation work in the United States ahead of two three-day pre-season tests in Bahrain in February. The team may produce new parts before those Bahrain sessions and will use on-track running there to prove improved reliability and extract further performance. Success in Bahrain — and subsequent iteration before the season opener in Melbourne in March, where Bottas will race alongside Sergio Perez — will determine whether the early milestones translate into consistent, race-ready form.

Until then, the Barcelona outing stands as an important historical step that demonstrated tangible progress while also highlighting the substantial technical and operational work still to be completed.

Sources