Which sides of the garage are we going to have?” “Well, which do you want?” Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez are chatting in the Silverstone pits a few hours before the first Cadillac Formula 1 car is dropped off, ready for its shakedown run the following day.

It’s a seemingly innocuous question, one that may already have been answered among the army of staff who are staring at screens on the other side of the Cadillac-branded dividing boards. It’s just one of the final little details before the fruits of their labour appear to occupy the space currently taken up by Motor Sport’s interviews and photography session.

Bottas and Pérez, both mid-thirties veterans of the F1 scene, with 16 grand prix wins between them, are comfortable in their own skin – as you’d expect. The mulleted, moustachioed Finn is amiable, chatty in his staccato way, laughing at our Australian-born snapper’s jest that he is the one who looks like more of an Aussie these days; the Mexican is rather less of an extrovert. And these contrasting, seasoned racers are a good combination for a start-up team.

“We prioritised not just experience, but experience with multiple championship-winning teams,” explains team principal Graeme Lowdon. “We’ve taken people who are super-fast. Also I knew from bringing in a new team in the past, the importance of the driver in their role in gelling the engineering and garage teams together, the marketing team too. That was one of the strong reasons why we went for drivers who have that experience – we don’t have to show them where the paddock turnstile is.”

The boss is someone who, says Bottas, he has known “very well, for a long time”, well before Lowdon’s time spent in the Sauber pit as manager of Zhou Guanyu, who is now the Cadillac reserve. Of the Cadillac project, Bottas adds: “My first contact was more than two years ago actually with Graeme. He was talking about the project, and then he kept me updated on how it’s going, and once they finally got confirmation that they were going to be in F1.

“When I knew that I was not going to be racing again with Stake F1 Team [Sauber] in 2025, I thought for me the best option is to join Mercedes and still go to every race as a reserve, get to do some testing, and still be very involved in the sport. Because this sport never stops, you know. It’s always evolving. And that worked out perfectly, because then the opportunity came with Cadillac. We started more serious talks, and in the end we ended up signing before August. It actually went pretty smoothly, because it was my priority. I really believed about this project, and it seemed that I was their priority as well.”

While Bottas was being replaced by Nico Hülkenberg at Sauber, Pérez lost his seat at Red Bull in December 2024. That, he says, is when talks began with Cadillac: “Obviously at the time they didn’t have the licence. Once it became clear that they were making it into F1, it was pretty straightforward. What the team wanted and what I wanted, once I knew who was behind the team and so on, it became clear that this was a project that will make me enthusiastic to come back.”

“Being able to experience life out of F1 gave me a huge perspective”

In a parallel universe, one where Cadillac didn’t get the nod for F1, we might be seeing both drivers racing elsewhere. But each was motivated by the desire to return to a race seat at the pinnacle of the sport. “IndyCar was one option,” recalls Bottas. “Supercars another [his girlfriend is Australian and he’s spent a lot of time Down Under], but that’s not yet. F1 was always the priority, and that can all come later. No doubt I’m going to do Bathurst one day in Supercars – that’s going to be fun! But that can wait – I still have a few years left in the tank in F1.”

“I had a few approaches from other series,” admits Pérez. “I would have liked to do WEC, but to do WEC it requires full commitment, and I wanted to keep my muscle memory for F1. Once I’m done with F1 it’s something I can think of, but F1 is my 100% goal for the next few years.”

The Cadillac pair reaffirmed their desire to be on the grid in polar opposite fashion – perhaps reflecting their different personalities. As reserve for Mercedes in 2025, Bottas was present at each grand prix, and his irreverent videos kept him in the public eye as a social media highlight. “Watching from the side wasn’t easy,” he acknowledges. “I got the confirmation last year: watching every race, I was missing the racing more and more. I still have that will and fire to race, and I have still more to give to the sport.

“I was trying to be as useful as I can at the weekends, not just being the reserve but very involved in all the meetings, and trying to help Kimi [Antonelli] the youngster. And I got to do some testing – five or six days in the end – which was important for me every now and then to jump in the car and get some laps.”

Pérez, meanwhile, stayed at home. His time at Red Bull, of course, ended with a 2024 campaign that would destroy many. “I didn’t enjoy much the sport, and I needed refreshment more than I thought,” he reflects. No driving of racing cars for him, but instead “I was doing quite a bit of karting regularly with my kids.”

How many does Pérez have; how old are they? “I’ve got four! They are eight, five, three and two.”

But surely the youngest two children aren’t karting yet… “Well, the three-year-old is karting! It was a great year, being away from the sport. Being able to live and experience life out of F1 gave me definitely a huge perspective.”

So he’s left los Perezitos pequeños behind in their Mexican idyll to be at a dank Silverstone – any prospect of the photo shoot taking place in the pitlane is scuppered by a dismal downpour. Still, the weather would be better for shakedown day. And it’s only a couple of months since Pérez did finally get back into an F1 car, when Cadillac’s nascent team ran a 2023 Ferrari at Imola. Here is an advantage he does have over Bottas, in the sense that his colleague’s contractual commitments to Mercedes kept him from starting prep with his new team until December.

For Pérez, the work with Cadillac began “basically as soon as I signed the contract [last summer]. We had a couple of sim sessions, a couple of visits to the factory, contact with the engineers, and it hasn’t stopped since then.” And of the Imola test, he smiles: “Since I was a kid I never stopped driving for so many months, and when I jumped back into the F1 car I was quite in the rhythm, back on the pace with a lot of feeling in the car of what was going on. It was nice, and gave me a lot of confidence that it would be straightforward.”

“Cadillac should be the team that will progress the most in 2026”

For that reason, he reckons, it will take little time to get up to speed – especially with the new regulations meaning a significant increase in pre-season test days. “I don’t think so,” asserts Pérez decisively when asked whether he will need to build up again. “I think already by the first or second day I will be back. We all start from zero anyway with these new regulations. It’s great to come back in new rules. The regulation changes are huge on the engine side, and that’s going to impact a lot on the driving styles. We have to change a lot from what we’ve been used to.”

Bottas agrees that 2026 is an ideal moment for a new team to enter F1: “The timing is great. There’s new things for every team – new chassis, new tyres, new power unit, that’s the same for everybody. So everybody will be learning a lot in the first part of the year, and everyone will have some kind of issues here and there.”

He also identifies testing as “when we’re going to start bonding. There’s many people I need to get to know better, and that’s one part of this sport – you have to work with so many different personalities from different backgrounds, and make the most out of those people around you. That process has already started.”

Among those personalities, Bottas is working with one of many ex-Alpine men at Cadillac in the form of John Howard, who takes race engineer duties on his car, while Pérez has his ex-Racing Point performance engineer Carlo Pasetti on his side of the garage. “We won the only race for the team in Bahrain [in 2020 – his first F1 victory] – it’s been great times together!” he laughs. Overall engineering chief is Xavier Marcos Padros, formerly of Ferrari and, last year, the Cadillac Hypercar effort.

“Everything is new for everybody in the team,” enthuses Bottas. “Now the excitement’s really building because we’re in Silverstone about to run a new car for the first time tomorrow. What we’re expecting is it’s not going to be an easy start. In every shakedown there’s always some issues.”

For all the experience of Bottas and Pérez, who between them have represented six of the ‘established’ 10 teams on the grid, the elephant in the garage is the perception of each to the world at large. We’re talking about drivers who were good enough to finish runner-up in the world championship on a combined three occasions – Bottas in 2019 and ’20, Pérez in ’23. But while one was measured at Mercedes against the greatest driver of his era, in the form of Lewis Hamilton, the other had to match up at Red Bull against the greatest of the next era – Max Verstappen.

“I’m fine with those years,” sighs Bottas, seemingly relaxed. “They were tough, I tried everything I could. I never managed to beat Lewis in the whole season on average. I was up against Lewis I would say at his prime, but I learned a lot from that era. I don’t feel like I have any shadow to jump out of. This is a quite different situation – me and ‘Checo’ are here both to work together and I’m going to try and do the best I can for the team.” And surely the work of Bottas contributed to Hamilton’s success: “I helped a few times! That’s something I will carry always.”

Pérez, meanwhile, has put his Red Bull trauma firmly in the past, perhaps vindicated by the travails of Verstappen’s 2025 team-mates. “I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity they gave me, and for the success we had together,” he offers, shying away from opening old sores. “We won two constructors’ titles, Max won a lot of titles when I was there. We had a lot of success, we had a great team together, so Red Bull will always have a place in my heart. They changed my career big time!”

It isn’t the time to reflect on the past anyway. This is certainly not a season where either driver can fight for the F1 title. Expectations are far more modest, and this is an atmosphere in which Pérez has flourished in the past in his days with Sauber and Force India/Racing Point. Ask what he hopes for this season, and he replies: “Progress. Lots of progress. Cadillac should be the team that will progress the most throughout the year. That’s the main target.”

Some points would be nice though… “Definitely. Step by step. And once you get your first points, you start to think of your next objective as a team.”

Bottas seems to be reading from the same PowerPoint on this question. “We are being realistic,” he states. ‘It’s not going to be an easy start, there’s lots of learning to do in the team. The main thing is to get a reliable car to start with and finish the races, and try not to be last, and that’s already a starting point. It’s not that much about where we start, it is where we end up, and that’s the motivation for everyone.”

You get the impression that it doesn’t matter from which side of the garage comes the Cadillac that notches up the first headline result. It will be celebrated equally fervently across the whole team.