Montreal was just the fifth race weekend for the all-new Cadillac Formula 1 team, and there were some positive signs as the Silverstone outfit continue to make progress.<\/p>\n
In Saturday\u2019s Sprint, Sergio Perez<\/a> was able to fight with cars that in reality should have been ahead of him, the Mexican crossing the line in an unexpected P11 before a penalty dropped him back.<\/p>\n However, as is inevitable for such a new organisation, there were also a few hiccups as the learning curve continues and a front suspension failure for Perez in Sunday\u2019s Grand Prix was a very public sign that work needs to be done. Nevertheless, the overall verdict is that the trend is upwards.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was good, and it showed progress,\u201d Team Principal Graeme Lowdon told F1.com after the flag.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know we’ve still got a lot to do in a lot of areas, and this is only our fifth weekend of Grand Prix racing, so we’re doing so many things for the first time that other teams have been doing for a long, long time.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that’s why it’s important to identify both the positive areas, and the areas that we need to work harder on as well.\u201d<\/p>\n On the plus side, Perez was as high as P17 in Sprint Qualifying. He was helped by a couple of drivers not participating, but nevertheless he was just 0.130s off making it into Q2 \u2013 something that didn\u2019t look likely a few races ago.<\/p>\n Then in the Sprint itself he made a good start and moved up to P11, holding off a group of potentially quicker cars with a brilliant defence.<\/p>\n He was a bit too aggressive in the eyes of the FIA stewards, who handed him a 10-second penalty for a move on Liam Lawson<\/a> that dropped him three places. Nevertheless, he had made a point.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was enjoyable,\u201d the Mexican said. \u201cWhen you are over-delivering weekend in, weekend out, that’s something quite nice.<\/p>\n “I’m very happy with my performances, with my level of driving. I’m happy I came back and proved it to myself that I’m one of the best out there. So that to me is really nice, and I’m very happy with the level of driving I’m doing.\u201d<\/p>\n It was more complicated for Valtteri Bottas<\/a>, who wasn\u2019t comfortable with his car on Friday, and dropped out of parc ferme to make changes for the Sprint \u2013 which meant that he had a car that felt very different.<\/p>\n In the main event both Perez and Bottas had their races compromised by joining McLaren<\/a>, Audi<\/a> and Carlos Sainz<\/a> in choosing intermediate tyres at the start. That led to early pit stops for both.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was honestly 50:50 at that point,\u201d Perez said of the tyre choice. \u201cWe took the gamble at that point. I felt like it stopped raining a little bit less, and it became a lot clearer that we were on the wrong tyre very early on, within three laps, we killed the inter, and that was the biggest issue out there.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lap to grid laps, they felt like 50:50. It was really hard to choose a tyre. And then when we went on to the race with so many aborts, the rain just calmed down quite a bit, and it was a lot clearer for the slick tyre.\u201d<\/p>\n “We were predicting a big mess on the first lap,\u201d said Bottas. \u201cSo maybe we could have capitalised with the inters at least by staying on track. But that rain kind of faded away pretty quickly. I think it was worth trying.\u201d<\/p>\n Subsequently Perez gained ground and had a good battle with the Haas<\/a> of Esteban Ocon<\/a> before the failure occurred \u2013 fortunately at a place on the track where he was able to head safely into the pit lane.<\/p>\n \u201cWe managed to recover, we had some good pace out there, with fights with Haas,\u201d he said. \u201cWe overtook the Haas, and unfortunately we had a suspension failure at the end, so yeah, that was it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s something that we have to understand and get on top of, because it’s not ideal what is happening and what has happened. It’s something we need to investigate and hopefully come on top of.<\/p>\n \u201cI think operationally we’re still lacking a lot, and we are not making the progress we are making in terms of performance, so we have to be able to maximise the car performance at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n After the race Lowdon noted that the initial investigation suggested that it was a one-off issue that won\u2019t be repeated, rather than any inherent fault.<\/p>\n \u201cIt looks like a whole combination of things, so it’s not something that we think there’ll be a repeat of,\u201d said the team boss. \u201cIt’s just a particular scenario, a particular chain of events from what I’ve seen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’ve seen plenty of teams have these things in the past, and it does typically tend to be a combination of circumstances. And it looks as if that’s a kind of unusual chain of events that’s led to it that have happened in a particular sequence. It’s something that’s easily preventable.\u201d<\/p>\n Bottas meanwhile finished Sunday\u2019s race in a distant P16, and while encouraged by his team mate\u2019s overall performance, he was clearly frustrated.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a tough day out there with the balance today,\u201d he said. \u201cThe car was over-rotating everywhere, oversteering, and I was fully locked with the diff and everything, and we just couldn’t cure it. So need to have a look what went wrong there<\/p>\n “We’ve had a few issues this weekend with set-up, like the car has been very different in each session. And even today there were some things that we couldn’t fix. So the car is not 100% for sure, it’s not yet in a place that I can gain good confidence with the car. But also we know that my car was 100%.\u201d<\/p>\n