Cadillac ‘here to do great things’, says Perez

The arrival of the start-up Cadillac Formula 1 team for the 2026 season signals a new era for Formula 1.

As well as an 11th team on the grid, there is also a raft of new technical regulations governing how the car is powered and designed.

But it’s not all change, as two famous F1 faces – drivers Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas – are ready to make a comeback with Cadillac.

“I definitely want to go all the way with this team,” Perez, 35, told the new series of the BBC podcast F1: Back at Base.

“I want to enjoy the journey with them and I’m pretty confident that we will be able to progress extremely quickly.

“Cadillac is here to do great things.”

The first Cadillac F1 car completed its first laps at a private shakedown at Silverstone on 16 January with Mexican Perez behind the wheel.

On the other side of the garage, Finland’s Bottas – who kept his finger on the F1 pulse as a reserve driver for Mercedes in 2025 – is also counting down to the next chapter of his career.

“For me, it’s like a comeback,” Bottas said in an exclusive interview for the F1: Back at Base podcast.

“I want to make it the best season I’ve had personally, when I look at my personal results. I really want to minimise things that I can feel that I could have done better.

“I want to give it all to myself, but first of all, to the team. If I can finish with a feeling that there was nothing I could have tried harder or could have done better, that’s a good goal.”

The arcs of Perez and Bottas’ F1 careers have followed a similar trajectory. Perez made his debut for Sauber in 2011, two years before Bottas made his bow with Williams. Both went on to play a big part in winning constructors’ world championships, Bottas contributing to five during his five seasons at Mercedes and Perez two during his four-year stint with Red Bull, which came to an end in 2024.

Cadillac’s new pairing will utilise all that experience as they take on a bigger role to help accelerate the new team’s growth.

“We’ve been basically through the whole paddock, we’ve done it all, we’ve seen it all in the sport,” said Perez. “So I think we have a great combination of drivers.

“Starting with a new team, it’s a different sort of challenge. Being able to be part of building a new team really excited me about this project.”

Bottas also believes he and Perez will complement each other on and off the track.

“He really seems like an easy guy to work with,” said the 36-year-old. “He loves racing like I do and he doesn’t do politics. He just wants to drive, race and make progress.

“This is the first time in my career I’ve been part of a team that is actually starting from nothing; to be part of meetings about what is the steering rack speed, where do you want this button on the steering wheel, what do you want on the dash.

“There’s so much to do and that’s been really, really enjoyable, being able to make an influence on these early steps.

“It’s going to be amazing. It’s going to be epic.”

Hollywood actor Keanu Reeves has also been impressed by Cadillac’s quest to join F1 in 2026 as the sport’s 11th team. Reeves is making a documentary about the US team’s journey to the grid, to follow his award-winning series about Brawn GP.

“I’m really struck by their passion and commitment to the project,” Reeves told the F1: Back at Base podcast.

“They have a strong bond forged in the fire of trying to get an F1 entry. The team they’ve put together has lots of experience.”

Cadillac are entering F1 at an exciting moment of transition for the sport. Major new technical rules are set to shake up the grid in 2026, with both the cars’ aerodynamics and power-units undergoing significant change.

Reeves predicts the unknowns of what lies ahead will be felt up and down the grid.

“There’s so many hopes and ambitions and it’ll either be celebratory or it’ll be ‘OK… let’s keep pushing, let’s keep going’,” said the Canadian actor, who has been following the sport since he was a child.

“It’s not only for Cadillac but all of the teams, which is kind of what’s cool about this moment. It doesn’t come around often in that it’s going to be the same stakes for everybody.”

US car giant General Motors had its F1 entry formally approved in March 2025 and named the new team after its luxury Cadillac brand. The transatlantic team, who are running race operations from its UK base in Silverstone and from Charlotte, North Carolina, will have had exactly a year to prepare for the opening Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne on 8 March.

Episodes 1-3 of series three of F1: Back at Base – A New Era are available to listen to on BBC Sounds with new episodes released weekly on the F1: Chequered Flag feed wherever you get your podcasts.