Sergio Perez tipped to return “fighting fit” as Cadillac readies bold 2026 F1 debut
Sergio Perez has had his year to breathe. Next, he gets a clean slate—and a very American one at that—as Cadillac joins the Formula 1 grid in 2026 with Perez and Valtteri Bottas leading the line. And if you ask one of his former bosses, don’t expect a slow re-entry.
“He’ll come back — and he’ll be fighting fit and fairly quick, I feel,” said Red Bull chief engineer Paul Monaghan, who worked with Perez during those turbulent final months before the Mexican’s early exit from Milton Keynes. “He finished with us struggling a little bit to keep up with his teammate. Perhaps a year off, a bit of sunshine, reset the brain, and he’ll come back.”
Cadillac’s arrival swells the field to 11 teams for 2026, the first expansion since Haas in 2016. It’s a big swing at a complicated moment: brand-new cars, revamped power units, sustainable fuels, reshaped tyres and electronics, and all the headaches that come with stitching together a fresh F1 operation. As Monaghan put it: “New car, new power units, new tyres, new electronics, the sustainable fuels — and then you are trying to build a team into that, you kind of have an idea of what Cadillac have taken on. So best of luck to them.”
Perez, who sat out 2025 after leaving Red Bull, lands in Detroit’s blue-chip project alongside Bottas. Between them they bring 16 grand prix victories—10 for Bottas, six for Perez—and hundreds of starts’ worth of scar tissue. It’s a veteran bet from Cadillac: start with racecraft and experience, let the car catch up.
Inside the paddock, there’s quiet respect for the scale of the effort. “They’re obviously putting together a very professional team, and they have good finances behind them,” said Aston Martin sporting director Andy Stevenson, another of Perez’s former colleagues. “I’m a huge fan of Checo, and I’d love to see him relaunch his career. He is a fantastic talent, he’s a great race driver… I’m hoping that Cadillac don’t go too well — but they’re certainly someone we’re not going to dismiss.”
That last bit was only half-joking. The blueprint looks serious from the outside. Simone Resta, now deputy technical director at Mercedes and once part of Haas’s own start-up journey, believes Cadillac’s approach can pay off under the 2026 reset.
“First of all, let’s not forget Valtteri — who is going to be back in the business for Cadillac,” Resta said. “It is very exciting for him, and it’s a good opportunity to be back after one year of stop. And Cadillac, they are investing a lot, hiring a lot of people, they are approaching the problem in a nice way, as far as we can see from outside. It’s a lot of challenge, like we said, but also they count on a Ferrari power unit only. So they’ve got one problem less, let’s say, to look after. I think they can be in the mix.”
If that sounds familiar, it’s because we’ve seen this film before. Haas entered as a lean operation with a tight technical alliance and banked early points by picking its battles. That’s not a guarantee—F1 has a way of turning “sensible” into “struggling” the minute the stopwatch appears—but it’s a viable path for a newcomer coping with sweeping regulations.
Where does Perez fit into all this? Perfectly, according to those who know him. He’s always been a racer first—clever in traffic, hard on the elbows, instinctive with tyre life. If Cadillac rolls out a car that’s somewhere near the midfield, those skills translate immediately. And if it takes longer, he’s shown he can carry a project through the grind. The sabbatical might just have cleared the fog.
There’s still plenty to prove. New teams learn the hard way about operational sharpness—pit stops, strategy, race-weekend flow. And while a Ferrari power unit simplifies one headache, extracting performance and reliability from a fresh chassis in a fresh ruleset is the real exam. But this isn’t a vanity exercise. Cadillac’s tone is more Detroit steel than splashy debut. You get the sense they know what they’ve signed up for.
Perez knows too. After the toughest patch of his F1 career and a season on the sidelines, he returns with something to say. If Monaghan’s hunch is right, he’ll be saying it at full volume.
