A debut (so far) to forget
The effort of Cadillac to enter the Circus as the eleventh team after long negotiations with Formula 1 materialized with the debut this season. In the debut world championship, it would have been legitimate to expect results or performances not up to the top teams, but not a disastrous start, especially with drivers of the caliber of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez, respectively former Mercedes and Red Bull. Instead, the first half of the 2026 championship proved decidedly disastrous.
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Another double retirement
In the first eleven races, the Ferrari-powered MAC-26 never finished in the top ten, becoming the only team without world championship points. Added to this are nine total retirements, with Bottas and Perez not finishing the Hungarian GP, just as happened in Austria. The first to raise the white flag was the Finn, due to a brake problem: “Unfortunately my race ended due to brake overheating – commented the one who, with 13th place in China, has so far achieved the team’s best seasonal placement – it’s a shame because we had made modifications to the brake cooling system, but they were not enough due to the extreme conditions and the nature of this circuit. It is another lesson for us as a team and we will use the week before the summer break to try to solve the problem so that it does not happen again. There are still positive aspects to take from this weekend, as we were closer to Williams than in the past. It was a challenging start to the season, as expected for a new team, but we have many moments to be proud of and many more to expect in the second half of the year.”
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Also bad for Perez, who had to stop in the runoff area just before the 50th lap due to a suspension failure: “It was a tough race. In the first stint I struggled a lot with balance and had slipping problems, but I managed to adapt my driving and the second stint went much better. I still felt that something was wrong with the car, so it is important to understand exactly what was happening. Being a new team, we expect to face challenges, but it is frustrating to have had some problems recently. We will use the next week, before the break period, to work hard in all areas and make sure to come back stronger for the second half of the season.”
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