{"id":475523,"date":"2026-02-12T17:37:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T17:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475523\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T17:37:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T17:37:08","slug":"returning-f1-winner-has-bold-outlook-for-new-team-were-not-just-here-to-debug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475523\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning F1 winner has bold outlook for new team: \u2018We\u2019re not just here to debug\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Returning Formula 1 race winner Valtteri Bottas believes Cadillac can start to think about car performance soon and is not \u201cjust here to debug\u201d in testing.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/teams\/cadillac\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cadillac<\/a> joins the F1 grid this year as the 11th team, bringing ex-Mercedes driver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/2\/valtteri-bottas\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valtteri Bottas<\/a> and former Red Bull runner <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/racer\/13\/sergio-perez\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sergio Perez<\/a> back to the series.<\/p>\n<p>The squad made it to the Barcelona shakedown late last month and enjoyed a productive <a href=\"https:\/\/www.crash.net\/f1\/news\/1089233\/1\/lando-norris-leads-twice-red-flagged-opening-day-first-2026-bahrain-f1-test\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">opening day of the first official Bahrain test.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Perez was the fastest of the pair in 14th on a 1m38.828s after 58 laps, while Bottas was 16th on a 1m39.150s having totalled 49 tours.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s good that we are here, we\u2019re running the car,\u201d Bottas told the official F1 website.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s really step one. We\u2019re making some decent runs, we\u2019re learning with each run, so that is important.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe still have many days ahead of us until Melbourne, and we still have lots of work to do.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s where we are. But it\u2019s exciting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd it\u2019s nice to see that we are really progressing each day when we are on track with the car.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bottas: \u2018We\u2019ve got to be ready to go racing\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Bottas feels Cadillac\u2019s current mileage is so far sparing it from being \u201cin trouble\u201d come the Australian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>However, he feels Cadillac can begin to focus on performance gains in next week\u2019s Bahrain test.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s so important to be at the Barcelona shakedown and here and running the car,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf we had missed any days, we would definitely have been in trouble in Melbourne.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSo, I think the team has done an incredible job so far to be on time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, step by step, instead of problem solving and debugging, the focus will turn to performance. That\u2019s what we need to keep finding in the next weeks, months and years.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p> Article continues below ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n<p>Asked if Cadillac can look at pushing the car more next week, he said: \u201cI think so. We\u2019ve got to be ready to go racing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re not here to only debug and solve issues.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re here to race, so we\u2019re going to try and focus on performance, try and learn about the car, which is a completely new beast to everyone in the team.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our F1 Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Returning Formula 1 race winner Valtteri Bottas believes Cadillac can start to think about car performance soon and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475524,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,3550,806,805,803,804,85,1512],"class_list":{"0":"post-475523","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cadillac","11":"tag-motor","12":"tag-motor-sports","13":"tag-motosport","14":"tag-motosports","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-valtteri-bottas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475523"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475523\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}