Cadillac boss Graeme Lowdon said the team have made “no offers” to a reserve driver to join them for their upcoming debut F1 season.

With the long-debated question of who will be their main drivers now answered, the next decision for Lowdon to make on a personnel front will come in the form of a reserve driver needed in case one of Valtteri Bottas or Sergio Perez is incapacitated.

Graeme Lowdon says search starts now for Cadillac reserve drivers

Unlike other sports where it helps to have a big squad, Formula 1 reserve drivers are rarely called upon for actual races and are instead more focused on testing and helping the team behind the scenes.

While quite rare, there were a few occasions in 2024 when reserve driver Oliver Bearman stepped in. The first came at the 2024 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix when he stepped in for Carlos Sainz after he had his appendix removed. Bearman was again used later that year in Brazil after Kevin Magnussen was given a race suspension for reaching 12 points on his superlicence.

There is also a tendency for a number of teams to share reserve drivers with Mercedes, often loaning out their drivers to teams who share their engines. Earlier this year, Bottas was in a McLaren to help with some testing.

As for Cadillac, they have yet to announce who will take up the role for them and the reason for the delay is that, as Lowdon explained, they have not started looking yet.

“We haven’t started looking, we’ve made no offers to anybody, for any reserve position with the team,” Lowdon told F1.com. “But that is now the position that we’ll turn our attention to and it helps complete the line-up.”

Cadillac will use Ferrari engines next year meaning they may be able to draw upon the Italians’ pool should they wish. This season, Zhou Guanyu and Antonio Giovinazzi have been fulfilling the reserve role for the Scuderia.

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Barring illness, Bottas and Perez should feature in every race next season with minimal penalty points between them. Perez has a clean licence while Bottas has five but those are set to expire in early December. The Finn will have to serve a long-standing grid penalty though.

On Perez in particular, Lowdon was not concerned that, unlike Bottas, the Mexican had not fulfilled any kind of reserve role this year and has been keeping away from the race track.

“I don’t think he will have forgotten how to drive, that’s for sure,” he said. “He’s doing a bit of karting and we’ll have him on the simulator quite soon. We’re going to do some testing in real world cars as well. So I’ve got no doubts that he’ll be back up to speed in time.

“Obviously one of the advantages that we have in 2026 is unlike a normal championship year, where there’s only three days of testing, for 2026 there’s going to be an initial test in Barcelona and then two additional tests in Bahrain. We’ll have three times the amount of testing so that will help get them up to speed as well.

“With Valtteri, it’ll help a lot [that he’s been with Mercedes] because there’s a lot that is new in 2026 in terms of tyres and power units in particular. So having an experienced driver like Valtteri, who’s up to speed on that kind of thing is valuable.

“The drivers don’t get to see the in-depth design secrets and all the rest of it but I think it’s quite valuable to have a driver who hasn’t left the paddock, so each weekend he’ll be in all the engineering meetings, his mind staying sharp.”

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