The 2026 season presents a major challenge for all Formula 1 teams, as the sweeping rule changes introduced this year have forced even the most experienced World Championship contenders to break new ground. For one team in the field, however, the task is far greater. This is because the Cadillac team is competing in its first season in the top flight this year as the eleventh team on the grid.<\/p>\n
As expected, the track record of the US team led by Cadillac F1 CEO Dan Towriss is modest. In the first eleven rounds of the World Championship, the experienced Cadillac drivers Valtteri Bottas and Sergio P\u00e9rez have yet to score a single point. The pair occupy the bottom two places in the World Championship standings. Their best Grand Prix result so far was Bottas\u2019s 13th place in Shanghai.<\/p>\n
The team experienced so many reliability issues that Towriss felt compelled to take action. He promptly replaced the team principal: Graeme Lowdon, who helped build the team from the ground up, had to leave; his successor is Marcin Budkowski, who will already be in action at Zandvoort. The Polish engineer has his work cut out to get the US team back on track.<\/p>\n
Sergio P\u00e9rez: All processes need to be reviewed<\/p>\n
And P\u00e9rez knows what needs to change for the team to take the next step. \u201cWe\u2019ve struggled a great deal with further development. I think, basically, we haven\u2019t had any opportunity yet to develop the car further. We therefore obviously need to rethink all our processes and find a way to become stronger in development,\u201d says the driver from Guadalajara.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Mexican, who has already competed in 292 Grand Prix races, knows: \u201cIn Formula 1, it\u2019s all about development, and that\u2019s exactly where I see a weak point for us at the moment. As a new team, we haven\u2019t achieved as much in this area as we would have liked.\u201d <\/p>\n
P\u00e9rez also makes no secret of the fact that he had hoped for more from his team. \u201cYes, of course,\u201d is his answer to the question. \u201cWe\u2019re just a bit too far off,\u201d he adds dryly. At the same time, he notes: \u201cThe good thing is that there are very clear areas we need to improve, and once we\u2019ve found the right solutions, we should soon be showing better performance.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 season presents a major challenge for all Formula 1 teams, as the sweeping rule changes introduced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":860404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-860403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=860403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/860404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=860403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=860403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=860403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}