Sergio Perez’s verdict on Cadillac’s scoreless 2026 F1 start

That did not mean the team had learned nothing. Road & Track’s Miami preview described Cadillac’s tough start as expected for a team built from scratch, while also noting progress through the first three race weekends and the fact that both Perez and Bottas reached the chequered flag in China. By early April, another report said Perez believed Cadillac needed to find roughly a second per lap to challenge the cars ahead and was looking toward a Miami upgrade package.

So Perez’s assessment since Australia has been consistent: the project is real, the gap is real, and progress only matters if it keeps arriving quickly.

Aston Martin is the immediate yardstick

Aston Martin matters because it is the rival Cadillac can most visibly measure itself against right now. RACER reported Perez’s view that Cadillac is developing strongly but needs to maintain its rate of improvement to stay in a fight with Aston Martin.

The Alonso battle has also given the back of the field a clear human benchmark. Perez said he was having fun racing Fernando Alonso, calling him aggressive but fair, while also acknowledging Cadillac lacked a little performance and was degrading the tires too much. Read Motorsport separately reported Perez’s hope that Aston Martin would not improve too quickly, after Alonso finished one place ahead of him in both the Miami sprint and grand prix.

That makes Aston Martin more than a storyline. If Cadillac can keep fighting Alonso and Stroll, its upgrades are producing visible gains. If Aston Martin pulls away, Cadillac risks being left alone at the rear.

Miami exposed Cadillac’s short-term weakness: tire degradation

The clearest technical concern after Miami was tire wear. Pit Debrief described Perez as fighting a losing battle against his rear tires on the way to P16, with a lack of mechanical grip hurting the car as the track evolved.

RacingNews365 reported that Cadillac brought its first major upgrade to Miami and that Perez identified the way the MAC-26 uses its tires as a major area to improve. Perez said the car degraded the tires too much and suggested that, in hindsight, he would have preferred the soft compound over the hard. NewsGP likewise framed tire degradation as Cadillac’s biggest short-term challenge while the team works to understand how to extract performance from the updated MAC-26.

That is why Miami was not just a disappointing P16. It showed that Cadillac’s problem is not only finding pace, but keeping that pace alive across a stint.

What Canada preparation should focus on

The Canadian Grand Prix is relevant because the tire question follows Cadillac to Montreal. Reports on Pirelli’s allocation list the same softest trio for both Miami and Montreal: C3 as hard, C4 as medium and C5 as soft.

Based on the available sources, there is no confirmed Canada-specific Cadillac upgrade to point to. The supported preparation angle is more practical: translate the Miami lessons into better tire management, a wider setup window and sharper compound choices. The same compound nomination does not make Montreal a copy of Miami, but it does make Perez’s tire-degradation warning directly relevant to the next test.

What Perez’s comeback means for Cadillac

For Perez, this is a different kind of comeback. F1’s current profile lists him with 305 Grand Prix entries, 1,638 career points, six wins and 45 podiums, which gives Cadillac a veteran reference point rather than a driver simply learning how F1 works.

The early evidence suggests his value is diagnostic. Since Australia, he has pushed for bigger steps, highlighted the need to keep pace with Aston Martin’s development, and identified tire degradation as the short-term weakness after Miami. PlanetF1 also reported in April that Perez was already targeting Cadillac’s first points finishes by the summer break, which frames the opening races as a build phase rather than an instant-results campaign.

Seen as a post-Red Bull chapter, the meaning is therefore less about immediate redemption and more about whether Perez can turn that experience into development direction for a new constructor.

The verdict

Perez’s view of Cadillac’s scoreless start is realistic but not defeatist. The team is still on zero points after four Grands Prix, and Miami’s P16 showed that tire degradation and race pace remain limiting factors. But compared with the Australia baseline, the story he is selling is one of measurable development: keep Aston Martin in reach, make the upgraded car kinder to its tires, and use Canada as the next proof point.