Cadillac F1 Driver Sergio Perez: Miami 'Will Be the Biggest Test For Us'

Perez Hopes Cadillac F1 Will Make Progress at Home Mark Thompson - Getty Images The Miami Grand Prix is bound to be a huge weekend for the Cadillac Formula 1 operation and owner Dan Towriss. The team will be competing on home ground in only its fourth race weekend, and there is sure to be a lot of attention and publicity noise around the camp. It has already been announced that the cars will be running a special livery, with a nod to the stars and stripes.

Cadillac has had a tough start to the season so far, as was always going to be the case given the huge challenges involved in setting up an F1 team from scratch and even getting to the Melbourne grid. The cars were, inevitably, at the back of the field in Australia, but on the positive side, there was some progress through the first three race weekends. Both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas made the checkered flag in China, which was something of an achievement given that the current cars are incredibly complex.

Additionally, a lot of teams have had reliability issues this year—McLaren didn’t even get to start in Shanghai. Cadillac repeated the feat with a second double finish in Japan. There was another landmark that weekend as both drivers qualified ahead of the troubled Aston Martins of Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll—something that we would never have imagined a few months ago.

Perez just managed to stay on the lead lap in the race, albeit helped by a safety car period closing up the field mid-event that made the result not representative of the overall performance. He eventually finished 27 seconds off the battling pair of Carlos Sainz and Franco Colapinto, having lost a second a lap to them from the safety car resumption to the flag. NurPhoto - Getty Images That gap was also reflected in a 1.