Cadillac's journey to the 2026 Components 1 grid has reached one other milestone with its first in-person monitor outing as common driver Sergio Perez took the wheel of a Ferrari SF-23 at Imola.
Cadillac, which is able to grow to be F1's eleventh staff subsequent 12 months, has been conducting simulation work with its improvement drivers for a very long time, and has lately been in a position to feed 2026 racer Perez into its workflow.
However by not having a present regulation automobile, the staff has largely been caught within the digital world to this point. That has now modified because the staff concluded a cope with its energy unit provider Ferrari to mortgage a two-year-old Ferrari SF-23, which satisfies F1's Testing of a Earlier Automobile laws.
On Wednesday, 30 Ferrari staff members assisted round 20 Cadillac members as they moved into pitboxes 16 and 17 at Imola. Mexican F1 veteran Perez will run the automobile, which runs in a unadorned carbon fibre livery, for 2 days. The 2023 machine was first given a shakedown by Ferrari take a look at driver Arthur Leclerc at Fiorano on Tuesday.
Talking solely to Autosport on the current Singapore Grand Prix, Cadillac staff principal Graeme Lowdon mentioned the target of the Ferrari mortgage was primarily to offer his staff a primary alternative to start out working collectively in an actual trackside setting and provides the squad hands-on operational observe with a present spec F1 automobile to drill procedures.
“Really, present staff testing is sort of what we're all for. We wish to use a automobile, as a result of in the entire simulations that we talked about, we attempt to make it as actual to life as attainable,” Lowdon mentioned.
Cadillac Components 1 Crew Simulating a race weekend in preparation for 2026
Picture by: Cadillac Communications
“I feel everybody will get just a little bit wrongly involved, that ultimately we will get a bonus by testing another person's automobile or one thing. However we're not testing the automobile, we're testing the folks.
“Sure, we need to acquire the benefit, however not from something to do with the automobile. The benefits that we would like is for our mechanics to have the identical expertise that every one the mechanics on this pitlane are having on daily basis working with every automobile.”
He added: “It's important to get the mechanics used to that muscle reminiscence of working an F1 automobile. You may have to have the ability to stick tyre blankets on, after which there's simply the scale of a automobile and the warmth that comes off one, and the presence that they've.”
Perez's 2026 colleague Valtteri Bottas must wait longer to start out his Cadillac position, with the Finn nonetheless tied to Mercedes as its reserve driver till the top of the 2025 season.
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