Why Cadillac picked Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Pérez

Last December, Mercedes completed its full Formula 1 driver lineup when the team announced that Valtteri Bottas was returning as its reserve driver.

Bottas had spent five seasons in Brackley, helping the team secure five consecutive Constructors’ Championships. When Mercedes signed young George Russell to drive for the team ahead of the 2022 season, it put Bottas on a path to Alfa Romeo, which then rebranded as Sauber, for the next three seasons. But with Sauber signing Nico Hülkenberg and Gabriel Bortoleto for 2025, Bottas needed a new role, one he found with his former team.

When the move was announced, Mercedes Team Principal Toto Wolff said this in part: “Along with scoring multiple Grands Prix wins, he played a vital role in five of our championship victories. His technical feedback and input were important in helping us to those successes and pushing the team forward.”

Fast forward to today.

Cadillac, the incoming team that will join the grid for the 2026 season, confirmed the worst-kept secret in the sport, announcing that Bottas and fellow veteran Sergio Pérez will be the team’s two drivers next year. Between the two, Cadillac is gaining 527 Grand Prix starts, 16 Grand Prix wins, seven Constructors’ Championships, and 26 years of F1 experience.

Those 527 Grand Prix starts give Cadillac the third-most experienced driver pairing on the grid, behind Aston Martin (614 starts between Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll) and Ferrari (551 combined starts between Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc).

Leaning into that experience may give Cadillac a chance to compete early in its F1 journey, but more importantly, it allows the team to build a solid foundation for an even better future.

Which brings us to that Wolff quote.

Between Bottas and Pérez, the team’s new drivers have seen everything there is to see in F1. They have seen what works in the garage, in the briefing room, along pit lane, and on the track. They have seen what setup changes can do for the car at every track on the F1 circuit. They have seen what wins championships.

They have also seen what does not work on the grid.

Cadillac is building an F1 team from the ground up. They are filling out every role within the organization, and perhaps most importantly, they are getting their own power unit program up and running. As Cadillac joins the F1 grid, a new set of regulations arrives as well, and both Bottas and Pérez have experience dealing with regulation changes given their time in the sport.

The experience these two drivers bring to the table will help Cadillac along every single step of this journey.

Some may say that Cadillac played it safe here, and that the team could have gone in a bolder direction with younger drivers, or tried to lure stars away from IndyCar or another series.

But what they’ve done is place a bet on experience and a strong foundation paying off in the future. These two drivers can help the team build out every element of an F1 operation, and their decades of experience -- including being on championship-winning teams -- is going to help Cadillac for years to come.