After months of speculation, Cadillac has confirmed a Formula 1 driver lineup. The brand will hire both Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez, two grand prix winners that have been out of the sport since the conclusion of the 2024 season. The pair will debut with the team when the General Motors and TWG Motorsports-operated program makes its first start at the Australian Grand Prix in March of 2026.
Bottas and Perez are both many-time F1 race winners and former series runner-ups, although both saw most of their success as effective second drivers. Bottas has ten career wins, all supporting Lewis Hamilton at Mercedes. Perez has six wins, five with Red Bull Racing and one with the team now known as Aston Martin F1.
In addition to their experience at elite programs, both Bottas and Perez have long resumes with smaller teams. Sergio Perez spent years with Sauber and various incarnations of the current Aston Martin team before landing at Red Bull. Bottas ran for Williams before he joined Mercedes, then spent three years at Sauber afterward. At Cadillac, the pair will need to call on their experience with programs coming up to speed as they help the brand toward its aspirations of joining teams like Red Bull and Mercedes at the front of the series.
All that experience means that Bottas and Perez make for a particularly old lineup. Both will be 36 when they make their racing debuts for Cadillac, meaning the pairing would have the highest average age among 2025 Formula 1 lineups. The Aston Martin duo of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will also reach a combined age of 36 during the 2026 season, but that average is weighed heavily by the 44-year-old Alonso.
The combined age of the brand's two drivers mean that this lineup is far from a long-term solution, but Cadillac leadership says that the pair are on "multi-year deals." That gives the program some level of stability in its early years, potentially allowing the team to find its footing as a Ferrari engine customer before debuting its own engines in 2029.
In a quote shared by the Cadillac F1 team, Bottas describes the program as a "long-term vision" that is "ambitious but also grounded." Perez says that he is "proud to be part of such an ambitious and meaningful project from the very beginning, adding that he believes that he and Bottas "we can help shape this team into a real contender, the team of the Americas."
Bottas has spent the 2025 season as a reserve driver for Mercedes-AMG F1. Perez has been away from the sport since departing Red Bull at the end of 2024. Both will soon begin their preparatory work with Cadillac, and by the beginning of next year, the pair will be the first two full-time drivers to run laps in a General Motors Formula 1 car.
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