Cadillac’s test programme is set to resume on Wednesday at Barcelona as the new Formula 1 team aims for a cleaner second day on track.
F1’s newest entry was among the first out of the pitlane on Monday as the pragmatic approach to its debut – which facilitated a successful Silverstone shakedown nearly two weeks ago – allowed it to be ready for the very start of this week’s test.
With teams permitted to run on three of the five days at Barcelona, Cadillac’s plan always seemed to be to skip Tuesday. This gave it time to properly assess and address the issues that arose during Monday’s running.
After Valtteri Bottas had a solid first morning in the car, managing 33 laps including a slightly longer run at the end of his session, Sergio Perez only completed 11 when he took over for the remainder of the day. It meant Cadillac ended the day 6.5seconds off the pace, albeit with performance the furthest thing from its priorities at the moment.
Ex-Red Bull driver Perez said Cadillac had “a lot of issues” but insisted it was “good”: “It’s our first day, so it’s been positive in that regard, you want all the problems to come now and hopefully the next couple of days can be a lot smoother for us.”
The drivers will naturally need to spend some time getting used to the car and how the new engines work, as Perez described it as “massively different to what we’ve been used to” and “the biggest regulation change I’ve had in my career”.
But for Cadillac, which has very modest expectations for 2026 and is expected to be at the back of the grid, the real priority this week is mileage and learning to work as a team.
It completed a test in a 2023 Ferrari last year, and the Silverstone shakedown.
That is the sum total of its experience working together as an F1 operation so there is a huge amount to learn – especially now it has its own car to understand and optimise as well as all the associated logistics and processes.
That is why team principal Graeme Lowdon, referencing how this has been referred to as a ‘Shakedown Week’ when in reality it is a full-scale test for most teams, insisted “it is very much a shakedown week for Cadillac”.
“Now we’re just working steadily through all of the different car systems,” Lowdon said.
“These cars are incredibly complicated, but I’m really pleased with the progress that we’ve made.
“We’ve got more work to do this week, but all in a structured way.”
As an example, the issues that derailed Perez’s afternoon on Monday need not have hurt its mileage to the extent it did.
Lowdon said it was possible for Cadillac to complete more laps then if it wanted to, but that would have come at the cost of deeper troubleshooting.
It was an immediate illustration of the “de-bugging” Bottas had said was a feature of his morning in the car. And that has to be Cadillac’s priority.
“The key thing for us is exactly that – debugging,” said Lowdon. “We could have run more laps [with Perez] or we could have looked to solve certain problems, make sure that they’re solved, and tick those off the list. And that’s the most important thing.
“We’re very lucky this year in that we’ve got a shakedown week this week, and then two tests in Bahrain.
“So we’re very much focused on using this time in Barcelona to shake down all these systems, iron out all of the various gremlins, and then be on the front foot for Bahrain.”
