Sergio Perez it seems is coming back.
A year out. That’s all it took. Now he’s lining up for Cadillac’s first crack at Formula 1 in 2026. Word in the paddock says Monza is when they’ll lift the lid.
Not yet officially confirmed by the team. But you’d be brave to bet against it.
2024
The stats last season were ugly. Just over a third of Verstappen’s points. Same car. Same paint job. Perez paid the price despite that early-season promise and new contract.
But that doesn’t tell the whole story. Liam Lawson couldn’t make it work either. Yuki Tsunoda, same story. The second Red Bull seat has a way of chewing up anyone who isn’t Max Verstappen.
Perez didn’t blow up in the press though. Didn’t blame the team. The lap data told the truth anyway. 2024 wasn’t so much him falling off. It was a car built for one style. And it wasn’t his.
At the time, it looked like failure. Now? Feels more like proof. The window for success in that seat was never wide.
Intent Was Always There
Perez never said he was gone for good. Back in January he admitted the first half of the season would decide the future. Retiring? That wasn’t in the plan.
His dad was louder. Antonio Perez Garibay insisted the best was still to come. They weren’t finished with F1. Something big was brewing.
Now we see what it was.
Inside the Cadillac Plan
Forget the idea this is a tail-end team looking to make up the numbers. Cadillac arrive as F1’s 11th outfit, straight in as a full entry.
General Motors is backing it. TWG Motorsports on board, led by Dan Towriss. Paperwork signed. Facilities mapped out.
Two homes. Silverstone is already humming. Fishers, Indiana is the big build, starting from the ground up. Ferrari engines and gearboxes for 2026. Aiming for their own power unit before the decade’s up.
Graeme Lowdon runs the project trackside as Team Principal. He’s modelled it off NASA. Not just a cute analogy – actually the Apollo blueprint. Clear roles. Heavy integration. Zero dead weight.
Nick Chester’s in as well. Staff development locked in. They’re talking about a “people-first” culture. Easy to dismiss.
In F1? That can be the difference between folding and fighting.
It’s a start-up. But with a heavyweight wallet behind it.
Why Perez?
Cadillac need points. Perez specialises in picking them up.
Force India. Sauber. Racing Point. Always the underdog. Always delivering when it counted.
He’s lived the sport from both ends of the paddock, scrapping for Q2 with budget teams, then running at the sharp end with Red Bull, fighting for wins. He knows how to get the most from whatever he’s given. Knows the political game too.
And he brings an audience with a wallett. Mexico. The Americas. Huge reach. That’s sponsor gold. His backers? Telecoms. Banking. Energy. All ready to travel with him, all ready to go on the side of the car which if your a new team in F1 is invaluable no matter how big the bank balance.
No US driver? No problem. Checo covers the market pull himself.
Verstappen Endorsement
Max even spoke up.
If Perez still has the will to race, Verstappen said, he’s a smart signing. Especially for a fresh team. He pointed to those Force India and Racing Point seasons – Perez wringing results out of nowhere.
The Gamble
This isn’t risk-free.
Cadillac might hit the ground running. They might not. New rules. New build. No guarantees.
If they’re slow and Perez is lost in the pack, the headlines write themselves. Too old. Too slow. Past it.
At 35, that’s hard to shake.
But if the car works? That’s a redemption arc people will talk about for years.
This is the wager, and it’s one the Checo camp seems ready to bet all in on.
Who Fills the Second Seat?
Perez seems nailed on. The other seat’s the open question.
Valtteri Bottas is the name most expect. Ten wins. Pushing 250 starts. Been posting Cadillac hints online. He’s keen and don’t be mistaken by his social media personality, which often sees him joking around. Bottas wants to be back on the F1 grid as he has unfinished business in F1.
Felipe Drugovich has a shot. 2022 F2 champion. Reserve at Aston Martin. Plenty of simulator hours and has been waiting for the opportunity to prove himself, he may well feel, after being in the shadows for too long, that now is the time to move.
Zhou Guanyu’s in the mix. Managed by Lowdon in the past. Worked with him at Sauber. Currently, Ferrari’s reserve. That’s an easy link to China and with very few friends in the paddock making a driver move, which is popular in the very political world of Marenello, this may well go a long way for a new team building relationships especially with your engine supplier.
Mick Schumacher? The name still has pull. Brings the commercial side. On-track value is less certain, but there are a lot of people who feel the very uncompetitive Haas didn’t give the former F2 Champion the chance he deserves.
Jack Doohan’s a possibility. Light on F1 mileage though. Wouldn’t fit the “two veterans” model and lacks commercial appeal.
Then there’s a wildcard rookie play. Jak Crawford for instance, would be a brave move but would be a great home signing for the team. That means extracting him from an academy deal. Not straightforward by any stretch of the imagination, but not impossible for GM.
The Road Ahead
If Monza is launch day, Perez gets half a year before the first 2026 test.
The new regs wipe the slate clean. Everyone starts from scratch. No one’s locked into an old pecking order.
Cadillac think they can land it. Perez it seems, thinks so too.
Get it right, and this could be the chapter that redefines his final seasons and redemption. Get it wrong, and it’s sure to be the last time we see Checo in F1.