Checo Perez delivered the Cadillac Formula 1 Team its best official finishing position of the 2026 season, climbing from 19th on the grid to 14th at the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix in Spain. Teammate Valtteri Bottas retired from the race on lap 15 as a precautionary measure after experiencing technical issues.
Perez completed all 66 laps of the Spanish Grand Prix, posting a fastest lap of 1:22.820 as he gained five positions through strategic tire management. The result extends Cadillac’s record of getting at least one car to the checkered flag at every race this season.
Bottas, who started from 20th on the grid, managed a fastest lap of 1:25.745 before the team elected to park his car. The Finnish driver acknowledged the difficulties his side of the garage faced throughout the weekend.
“It’s been a tough weekend with several issues on my side of the garage,” Bottas said. “There are still positives to take as we seem to be a bit closer to the midfield in qualifying and my pitstop was great. It’s good that we now have one weekend without a race, which presents the opportunity for us to get on top of these issues back at the factory.”
Perez pointed to the demanding nature of the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as a useful diagnostic tool for the fledgling team’s development program. “Barcelona is the kind of circuit that exposes weaknesses, and from that point of view it gave us a very clear picture of what we need to improve,” Perez said. “We’ve got updates coming in Austria that should help us make a step forward, with more developments planned after that. The important thing is that we understand the direction we need to take, and I’m confident we can keep making progress and move closer to the midfield fight over the next few races.”
Team Principal Graeme Lowdon acknowledged that Barcelona was always going to be a challenging venue given the team’s current pace deficit but praised the effort to compete for track position throughout the race. “We nevertheless gave it every shot to race with the cars in front and achieve track position wherever possible,” Lowdon said. “We now head to Austria, which will be a very different track yet again, but with some upgrades to come we are hopeful of continuing the solid progress demonstrated this year.”
Cadillac F1 returns to action at round eight of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship, the Austrian Grand Prix, in two weeks, followed by the British Grand Prix one week after that. The team plans to bring car upgrades to the Red Bull Ring as it targets further gains toward the midfield battle.