Cadillac’s first season in Formula 1 is not moving at the pace that Sergio “Checo” Pérez expected. The Mexican driver acknowledged that the last races have generated disappointment within the new scooter, mainly due to the lack of evolution that the monoplace has shown.
During a participation in the official podcast of the category, Beyond The Grid, Pérez explained that the development of the car should be one of the main priorities of a team that has just joined the championship.
“I think the last races have been disappointing, there’s a lot of disappointment because we haven’t been developing the car,” Perez said.
The Mexican believed that Cadillac must find the reasons for the recent stagnation and change its way of working to more steady progress.
“Being a new team is what we should be doing. We haven’t been improving and I felt there was a bit of stagnation in the last races and that’s why we had to review things about how we were doing everything,” he added.
Pérez understands that Cadillac is still in a learning process due to its status as a new scooter in Formula 1, but believes that that process should begin to reflect on the track.
The goal for the Mexican pilot is that the team can develop tools that allow him to progressively approach the scuderies that currently have a better performance.
“I want to see more progress, close the gap with the teams ahead of us and be able to mix more with them in the races,” Pérez said in the same podcast.
The statement reflects one of Cadillac’s main needs in its debut season: to transform the learning accumulated during its early races into a concrete evolution of the car.
With the second half of the season still ahead, Checo Pérez believes the coming months will be important to determine how far Cadillac can get in its first championship.
The Mexican driver expects the improvements that will be incorporated during the second half of 2026 not only allow to raise the immediate performance, but also lay the foundation of the project for the next season.
“I want to see much more progress, close the gap and I think that will give us a huge boost to start next year,” he said.
The evolution of the monoplace will therefore be one of the main points of attention for Cadillac during the closing of its first F1 campaign.
The arrival of Cadillac to the championship represents a new project within the highest category of automobile, so the team is still building processes and gaining expertise in different areas.
For Pérez, however, learning cannot become a permanent explanation for the lack of progress. The Mexican wants the work done outside the track to translate into a car able to compete more and more close to its rivals.
The second half of 2026 will be key to checking whether Cadillac manages to reverse the stagnation that Checo signals and, at the same time, reach its second year with a more solid competitive base.
