Sergio Perez warned that Cadillac must find consistent on-track performance quickly and speed up development across departments or risk being left behind in the 2026 F1 campaign. He pointed to well-resourced rivals such as Aston Martin, which has invested heavily, including a new simulator and targeted hiring, as a particular threat to a newcomer. Cadillac entered F1 this season running Ferrari customer engines and only put its maiden F1 car on track on January 16. The team has not yet scored championship points. Perez said scoring points would likely require a chaotic race.

Cadillac has shown encouraging moments but only occasional promise in the opening rounds. The team looked competitive in Miami, splitting the two Aston Martin cars and benefiting from upgrades, with Perez running as high as 15th in the sprint and finishing 13th in the Grand Prix, close behind Fernando Alonso in both races. Persistent problems have included reliability issues and excessive tire degradation that has cost performance. Perez also said he would have chosen softs instead of the hard tire he ran in one race.

Across the early rounds the Cadillac was about 1.3 seconds off the Q2 cutoff, a gap that narrowed to roughly 0.3 seconds in Miami sprint qualifying before rivals were able to extract more pace. Operationally the team has made visible gains, pit stops improving from 25.793 seconds in China to 23.228 seconds in Miami, quicker than Ferrari, Haas and Audi that weekend but still behind Mercedes’ best of 22.042 seconds. Cadillac has also signed Valtteri Bottas. Perez said getting a better understanding of the MAC-26 ahead of the Canadian Grand Prix is a short-term priority, and the team frames short-term fixes and targeted upgrades as essential to closing the gap with established teams.