Sergio Pérez believes that Cadillac must thoroughly review its work processes after finishing at the bottom of the hierarchy in Budapest: a lot of work ahead for the new team principal.
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For its first season in Formula 1, the American team nevertheless exceeded some expectations.
While many feared seeing it evolve several seconds behind the rest of the pack, Cadillac managed to occasionally compete with Williams and Aston Martin.
Development pace
But the recent progress of its rivals, notably that of Aston Martin thanks to its latest upgrades, highlighted one of Cadillac’s main weaknesses: its ability to develop its car quickly.
“It has been very difficult for us to develop the car,” admits Pérez. “I think that, fundamentally, we have not developed it enough. So we obviously need to rethink all our processes to ensure that we are capable of developing much more efficiently, because in Formula 1, everything depends on development.”
For the Mexican, the difficulties are still understandable given the youth of the team: “I think that’s where we are a bit struggling. Obviously, as we are a new team, we probably haven’t developed as much as we would have liked.”
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Clearly identified solutions
Cadillac now hopes to accelerate its progress after the summer break. The team has also experienced a major change with the departure of Graeme Lowdon and the arrival of Marcin Budkowski as team principal.
With significant technical experience gained notably at Ferrari, McLaren, Renault, and Alpine, Budkowski has already expressed his intention to establish a true “winning mentality” within the American structure.
Pérez acknowledges on his side that he expected more from the first upgrades brought by Cadillac: “Obviously, yes. We wanted to reduce the gap more. We are simply still a bit too far. The positive point is that there are very clear elements which, if we manage to solve them, will quickly bring us a lot of performance. So that is something positive.”
Budkowski’s mission thus appears clearly defined: improve Cadillac’s internal processes to more quickly transform technical developments into performance gains on the track.
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