The new Cadillac team registered another milestone at Formula 1’s Chinese Grand Prix, as it racked up its first two-car finish.
And that accomplishment came despite its two drivers coming together on the opening lap of an eventful race at Shanghai.
Sergio Perez ran out of road as the long right-hander of Turn 1 switched to the left-hander of Turn 2, and made contact with Valtteri Bottas’ sister MAC-26. Bottas was able to continue, but Perez spun and dropped to the rear of the field.
Related Story
Fortunately, despite the wheel-banging moment, and the delay, Bottas and Perez were both able to reach the checkered flag.
Bottas took 13th—Cadillac’s best result so far—while Perez was the last of the 15 classified finishers, with the duo sandwiching the penalized Haas of Esteban Ocon.
Aston Martin’s double retirement—for the second race in a row—means that Cadillac holds 10th place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Rudy Carezzevoli//Getty Images
Cadillac F1 Team Principal Graeme Lowdon.
“We can be very pleased with that result,” said Team Principal Graeme Lowdon. “We saw today that the complexity of the new cars has given some experienced teams significant issues, so to get two cars to the finish at the end of our second-ever race weekend is a great achievement for everyone.
“More than that, we showed a good step forward in pace and overall performance throughout the weekend and were able to race other teams.”
Related Story
Perez held up his hands over the opening lap skirmish.
“I was a bit over-optimistic and didn’t realize he had nowhere to go, which cost me some time,” Perez said. “Then, every time I was closing the gap, I had a couple of issues with energy deployment and ended up losing more than 20 seconds overall. But we should be proud of what we’ve achieved over these two race weekends, and I’m looking forward to building on this at the next race in Japan.”
Bottas retired in Australia, and had to park the MAC-26 during the Sprint Race on Saturday, so Sunday’s result was his first time seeing the checkered flag in Cadillac colors.
“A great result for the team to finish with both cars in P13 and P15 in only our second Grand Prix,” Bottas said.
“It’s not something I expected as other teams had multiple issues across the race. From my side, I had a relatively trouble-free race, which put us in a solid finishing position. We were racing and managed to get Aston Martin with some good battles. We’ve clearly made progress in all the areas needed from race one to race two.”
U.K.-based Phillip Horton started covering Grands Prix while still at university and swiftly deemed that writing about Formula 1 and the behind-the-scenes machinations was much more engaging than reading centuries-old novels. Degree gained, he went on to cover the sport full-time from 2014 and is as intrigued and excited by the destinations Formula 1 visits during its lengthy annual world tour as the racing itself. Phillip joined Autoweek in 2021 and while he has just about learned to spell in American English he has yet to find anywhere in America that makes a proper cup of tea.