Perez to sample Ferrari at Imola as Cadillac warms up for F1 debut
Sergio Perez will be back in a Formula 1 cockpit next month — not in a Cadillac, not yet, but in a Ferrari. The six-time grand prix winner is booked for a two-day run at Imola in November under the sport’s Testing of Previous Cars regulations as Cadillac accelerates preparations for its 2026 entry.
Dropped by Red Bull at the end of last season, Perez has already locked in the next chapter of his F1 story as teammate to Valtteri Bottas at the all-new Cadillac outfit. With no legacy chassis of its own to run, Cadillac has turned to its future power unit partner, Ferrari, to put race miles in the bank for its lead signing.
“As much as I train, I need time, kilometres in the car,” Perez said at a football event in Mexico. “They are very specific exercises and muscles that you train in the car. I’m going to have two days in Imola, which is going to help me a lot. They’ll be very useful because we’ll be able to work with the mechanics and engineers to have the whole team ready for the testing program that begins in January.”
Pressed on which Ferrari he’ll drive, Perez added: “I think 2023.”
That points to the SF-23, and while the red car will inevitably grab the photos, Cadillac says the point isn’t the machinery — it’s the people.
Team principal Graeme Lowdon has been keen to calm the paddock’s raised eyebrows. “We’ve been looking at the testing a team can do under the TPC rules,” he said in Singapore. “We don’t have a previous car, but also the title is a slightly misnomer, because we don’t actually need to test a car, so it doesn’t really matter.”
In short: the lap times won’t matter and the setup sheets won’t be coming home to Detroit. “Current team testing is kind of what we’re interested in,” Lowdon continued. “I think everyone gets a little bit wrongly concerned, that in some way we can get an advantage by testing someone else’s car or something. But we’re not testing the car, we’re testing the people. The advantages that we want is for our mechanics to have the same experience that all the mechanics in this pit lane are having every day.”
That dovetails with Cadillac’s broader build-up. The car itself is advancing, with Lowdon revealing last month the first two race chassis are already in layup and the project remains on schedule. Ferrari power will sit behind the driver in year one, making Maranello a logical partner for the TPC running as the squad beds in procedures and personalities.
For Perez, it’s also about brushing off race rust. He hasn’t turned an F1 lap since Abu Dhabi last year and, while fitness work never stops, nothing replicates the real thing like the real thing. Expect a focused program at Imola that’s heavy on systems work and pit-lane choreography — starts, pit stops, live-fire practice for fresh crews — as well as data gathering to inform January’s planned test schedule.
Could Bottas join him? That’s trickier. Unlike Perez, Bottas is still a Mercedes man through the end of the year, serving as the team’s official reserve. Any mileage with Cadillac needs Toto Wolff’s blessing. The early signs are positive.
“Mercedes has been really supportive on the transition, so I don’t think they’re going to block me in any way,” Bottas said. “There’s been already discussions between me and Cadillac with online meetings and stuff like that, which I’m allowed to do. I think simulator stuff, that’s something actually Mercedes and Cadillac are going to speak about. I’ve had a visit at the Silverstone facility already… so yeah, I’ll be doing some stuff.”
Whether that “stuff” extends to a helmeted appearance alongside Perez at Imola remains to be seen. Drivers are typically tied to their current employers until December 31, though there’s precedent for post-season flexibility. The catch here is simple: Cadillac doesn’t have a previous car of its own to run, so any on-track running has to be via a partner — and that adds contractual layers.
Either way, November’s Imola outing marks the first time the Cadillac operation will put its processes against the clock. It’s a sensible, pragmatic step: rehearse with a reliable platform, work the kinks out in public but off the competitive grid, and make sure your lead driver’s muscle memory is firing before the heavy lifting starts.
There’s also symbolism in seeing Perez in red as Cadillac’s first test miles unfold. Ferrari’s badge might be on the nose, but this is a dress rehearsal for the newest act on the grid. And for a driver with something to prove and a team with everything to build, it’s exactly the kind of early, grown-up decision that matters more in March of 2026 than it does in the headlines today.
