Cadillac’s debut weekend at the Australian Grand Prix was dominated by reliability problems and limited running as the Ferrari‑powered entry, run by TWG Motorsports in partnership with General Motors, concentrated on fixes and development. The weekend marked the one‑year anniversary of Cadillac’s approval as F1’s 11th team and included its first qualifying session, but the team acknowledged an overall lack of outright performance.

Engineering troubles left the team short of meaningful Sergio Pérez was limited to 14 laps in FP1 and finished near the back of the session, failed to post a time in FP2 after stopping on track, and Valtteri Bottas recorded P17 and P19 in practice. Team reports cited a fuel‑system problem at the end of FP1 that required removing the battery and an unrelated hydraulic leak that caused the FP2 stoppage.

Both drivers were eliminated in the opening qualifying round (Q1) and are set to start the season opener 18th (Pérez) and 19th (Bottas) on the grid. Pérez said he got the “maximum” out of his first qualifying with Cadillac, described the day as “a really special day,” and said he was still “trying to understand” the new 2026 regulations. Bottas called getting through qualifying an achievement despite a red‑flag interruption; team principal Graeme Lowdon said the red flag disrupted their planned three runs and that Bottas lost significant time on the back straight.

Cadillac acknowledged the expected early struggles of a program built from scratch and said development is a work in progress. Drivers and engineers urged a “clean‑up” of recurring small issues that began in Barcelona and continued into the race weekend; Pérez said there were “too many issues” and urged more laps to fix the problems costing track time. Engineering consultant Pat Symonds described it as “a challenging day,” noted the two faults were unrelated, and said first running both cars together compounded setup and reliability checks. The team said its immediate priorities are operational learning, targeted upgrades and strategic adjustments, with car updates planned for the race as it focuses on enabling proper setup and evaluation for the season ahead.

Sources