Every step along Cadillac’s Formula 1 journey has been a significant milestone for the team, and Sunday’s Chinese Grand Prix was no exception.
In just their second race on the grid, Cadillac saw both Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez take the checkered flag, with Bottas finishing in P13 and Pérez in P15.
Problems for several other teams helped Cadillac on this day as three drivers — Max Verstappen, Fernando Alonso, and Lance Stroll — did not finish the race while four more did not even get to start due to pre-race mechanical problems. But after Cadillac saw Bottas fail to finish the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, both drivers made the full race distance in Shanghai, marking a fresh milestone for F1’s newest team.
“We can be very pleased with that result,” said team principal Graeme Lowdon after the race. “We saw today that the complexity of the new cars has given some experienced teams significant issues, so to get two cars to the finish at the end of our second-ever race weekend is a great achievement for everyone in our team in Indianapolis, Charlotte, Silverstone and Germany.
“More than that, we showed a good step forward in pace and overall performance throughout the weekend and were able to race other teams. It’s been a tough couple of weeks and I am very grateful to everyone in the team for all of their hard work. We can leave this first double-header with our heads held high, confident that we have a really good foundation which we can build on going forward.”
Pérez, who made contact with Bottas shortly after the lights went out, noted that the team should be “proud” given what they have accomplished in such a short time.
“It was a good race today and we can be happy with our performance as a team, getting both cars to the finish in just our second Grand Prix. My race wasn’t straightforward – I had contact with Valtteri at the start, which was on me. I was a bit over-optimistic and didn’t realize he had nowhere to go, which cost me some time,” said the veteran driver. “Then, every time I was closing the gap, I had a couple of issues with energy deployment and ended up losing more than 20 seconds overall. But we should be proud of what we’ve achieved over these two race weekends, and I’m looking forward to building on this at the next race in Japan.”
As for Bottas, he shared the pride noted by his teammate.
“A great result for the team to finish with both cars in P13 and P15 in only our second Grand Prix. It’s not something I expected as other teams had multiple issues across the race. From my side, I had a relatively trouble-free race, which put us in a solid finishing position,” said Bottas. “We were racing and managed to get Aston Martin with some good battles. We’ve clearly made progress in all the areas needed from race one to race two. I’m really proud of this team as we’re heading in the right direction, but we know there’s still work to do.”
Cadillac, along with the rest of the grid, will be back in action in two weeks at the Japanese Grand Prix.
