On August 26th, Cadillac confirmed that Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas will man the cockpits when the GM luxury automaker debuts in F1 in 2026. The announcement surprised few, and impressed fewer, as Perez and Bottas were the obvious and easy choices for Cadillac.
BREAKING: Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez will race for Cadillac Formula 1 Team in 2026!#F1 pic.twitter.com/umwBU2VCkA
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 26, 2025
The announcement video was accompanied by a voice-over from Keanu Reeves, and in a perfect world, Reeves would have welcomed Bottas and Perez to Cadillac’s “excellent adventure.” Unfortunately, the world is not perfect, and Reeves stuck to the vanilla script that Cadillac pushed him to read.
Also in a perfect world, Reeves would have told the Cadillac duo that if anyone knows “Speed,” it is him, and would have warned them of what he saw in his travels into the future via a magic phone booth, where he witnessed a faulty Cadillac rev limiter that caused the Cadillac F1 cars to explode if their speed dipped below 50 miles per hour.
🚨 BREAKING: Formula 1 looks set to approve GM's proposed 2026 entry bid early as next week.
— Fastest Pitstop (@FastestPitStop) November 23, 2024
The team will reportedly be called Cadillac F1 and will be powered by Ferrari engines when it enters the sport in 2026.
General Motors is expected to complete its own Cadillac power… pic.twitter.com/e57fTCeEJ3
Cadillac obviously prioritized experience over any other factor in their driver search. Bottas and Perez have a combined 527 race starts and 16 wins, and have long tenures with more than one F1 team. Cadillac likely had their minds set on Bottas and Perez from the start, given the other drivers in consideration.
In March, reports indicated Cadillac were seriously considering five drivers for the two positions: Bottas, Perez, Zhou Guanyu, Mick Schumacher, and IndyCar’s Colton Herta.
It seems Schumacher would have been the first driver eliminated from that list. Mick Schumacher has an F1 pedigree in name only and lacks the generational talent that his father, Michael, displayed in a legendary career that included seven world championships. The younger Schumacher also lacks non-generational talent, and I’m sure Cadillac’s reason for skipping him involved utilizing the old “the apple apparently does fall far from the tree” methodology. It seems the apple actually falls far from the orchard.
In the infancy of Cadillac’s planned entry into F1, then known as Andretti Global, Herta was the early choice of Michael Andretti for one of the seats. That was then, this is now. And right now, Herta has yet to earn even a super license and is thus not eligible for an F1 seat.
Zhou, the only Chinese driver ever to compete in F1, is young, has scored points in F1, and would have brought along the support of the world’s most populous country with him. While that may have been fantastic for merchandise sales and resulted in rabid support for his eventual last-place finish in the 2026 Chinese Grand Prix, Zhou’s qualifications don’t even compare to those of Bottas and Perez.
While Cadillac’s selection of Bottas and Perez may have lacked drama, imagination, and surprise, it still was the wise choice.
With American fanbase interest in F1 at arguably an all-time high, many wondered why Cadillac didn’t put just a bit more effort into an American driver. Maybe that was because there weren’t any viable options. Beyond Herta, did Cadillac even consider other American drivers for the positions? Probably not. If they did, Cadillac passed over those American resumes faster than a McLaren pit stop.
An American driver’s prominence in F1 may be doomed to ever occur. Logan Sargent was the last American in F1 (in 2023 and 2024), but he lasted less than two years with Williams, and it ended badly for Sargent and also ended especially badly for all the cars he wrecked. Sargent was replaced midway through the 2024 season by Franco Colapinto.
🚩 RED FLAG 🚩
— Formula 1 (@F1) September 23, 2023
Logan Sargeant crashes heavily at the final corner
Driver is OK#JapaneseGP #F1 pic.twitter.com/L6XBcd5WO2
There was once an American named Scott Speed in F1. In 28 starts in 2006 and 2007 for Toro Rosso, Speed scored zero points. Seriously, if an American driver aptly named “Scott Speed” can’t succeed, or even exist for that matter, in F1, then it just won’t happen.
In addition to drivers’ rumors at Cadillac, there were whispers that Cadillac would name Christian Horner team principal. That would have been great for F1, but only because it would have led to a resumption of the Zak Brown-Christian Horner feud. Brown and Horner loved lobbing petty criticisms of each other back and forth. That’s not unnecessarily a bad thing — those were the only occasions in which either team principal had anything even remotely interesting to say. Horner and Brown’s relationship could well be described as “cordial hatred.” While both were able to put their respective teams on top of F1, the more intriguing competition was the battle to be the most unlikable person in F1. It was likely a tie.
Cadillac quickly dismissed that rumor and wondered why it had even been a rumor, as the team had already named Briton Graeme Lowdon, formerly the CEO of the Virgin and Marussia F1 teams, to the position in late 2024. The team, called Virgin Racing in 2010, and Marussia Virgin Racing in 2011, scored zero points and finished last in each of its two F1 seasons, including 22 retirements in 76 starts.
🚨 BREAKING: GM has announced Graeme Lowdon will be team principal of the Cadillac F1 team
— Fastest Pitstop (@FastestPitStop) December 5, 2024
He previously was the CEO of Marussia F1.#F1 #AbuDhabiGP pic.twitter.com/kJ5EyBEXUE
With credentials like that, one has to wonder why Cadillac chose Lowdon to front its F1 team. And one can totally understand how the “Horner to Cadillac” rumors could start, and subsequently spread. Lowdon must know people in high places, and/or people with high net worths. In Cadillac’s defense, the team can’t finish any worse than what Lowdon produced in his previous role as team principal.
Cadillac will, of course, experience the setbacks and growing pains that other first-year teams have experienced in the past. This should be where the experience and knowledge of Bottas and Perez will serve the team well—both have been in the business long enough, and both know what it takes to win in F1, because they’ve been first-hand witnesses to Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen winning often.
Bottas and Perez will certainly have equal standing with the team, so this won’t be a case of a “Driver 1A” and “Driver 1B” designation. Both are known most for their service to championship seasons of Hamilton and Verstappen, so Cadillac should smartly label them “Driver 2A” and “Driver 2B.”
In 2026, Cadillac should plan on failure and setbacks. Their goal should be straightforward: to have reliable cars, finish races, and occasionally compete for points. Let’s just hope Cadillac’s is most impressive in the United States, either at Miami in May, Austin in October, or Las Vegas in November. Miami seems much too early in the season for Cadillac to have worked through early-season gremlins to compete for points. Austin looks like a reasonable target for Cadillac to challenge for points, with 18 races of data behind them, with a devoted American contingent in Austin cheering them on, and with some new wind tunnel data that says a Texas-flavored front wing consisting of bull horns will save them a few tenths a lap.
