Valtteri Bottas returns as a former F1 winner with a bold forecast for Cadillac: this team isn’t here just to debug.
Cadillac enters the Formula 1 field this season as the 11th team, bringing back experienced names in Bottas, a former Mercedes driver, and Sergio Perez, who previously raced for Red Bull. The squad wrapped up a Barcelona shakedown late last month and had a productive first official Bahrain test day. Perez topped their pace on a 1m38.828s after 58 laps (placing 14th among the pair), while Bottas logged 49 laps and was 16th with a 1m39.150s.
“It’s good that we’re here, we’re running the car,” Bottas told the official F1 site. “That’s really step one. We’re making some decent runs, we’re learning with each run, so that is important. We still have many days ahead of us until Melbourne, and we still have lots of work to do. That’s where we are. But it’s exciting. And it’s nice to see that we are really progressing each day when we are on track with the car.”
Bottas argues Cadillac’s current mileage helps them avoid major trouble at the Australian Grand Prix but believes the focus should shift toward performance improvements at the Bahrain test next week. “It’s so important to be at the Barcelona shakedown and here and running the car,” he said. “If we had missed any days, we would definitely have been in trouble in Melbourne. So, I think the team has done an incredible job so far to be on time. But, step by step, instead of problem solving and debugging, the focus will turn to performance. That’s what we need to keep finding in the next weeks, months and years.”
When asked about pushing the car harder next week, Bottas replied, “I think so. We’ve got to be ready to go racing. We’re not here to only debug and solve issues. We’re here to race, so we’re going to try and focus on performance, learn about the car—which is a completely new beast to everyone in the team.”
Note: This summary is drawn from reporting on Cadillac’s Bahrain and Barcelona sessions, with ongoing coverage on Crash.net.
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