Former Red Bull driver Perez has reached an agreement that will see him return to the grid driving for Caddy, with an announcement expected in early September during the Italian Grand Prix weekend. The focus now turns to his team-mate.? Several former F1 drivers are said to be in the running, including Valtteri Bottas, Zhou Guanyu and Mick Schumacher.
Merc seem to have been bigging Bottas up recently, I wonder if that is to help get him a drive with Caddy?
Good point about Bottas,infact I`d like to see him back on the grid.He`s too good to be just standing in the garage with headphones on every race weekend. Just on the same topic of reserve drivers what happened to Mick Schumacher.?
Just Googled this little gem :--Valtteri Bottas's management team includes Toto Wolff, Didier Cotton, and Mika Häkkinen. While he works with these managers, Bottas has also stated he is taking a more active role in managing his own career. In the past, Wolff was not Bottas's manager while he was at Mercedes, but he has rejoined the management team since Bottas moved to Alfa Romeo. Mika Hakkinen, a two-time F1 champion, has also been a long-term manager for Bottas.
From the hints that have been dropped , I expected to see Valtteri confirmed by now . So I’m fully expecting them to sign both Perez and Bottas . Now I’m bound to be wrong !
Do you have insider info, or have you seen it somewhere credible? I’m not saying it won’t be Perez (he’s the obvious choice), but I’ve not seen more than a fresh round of rumours? As for the rest of the list, it’s pretty uninspiring line-up. Mick has been racing reasonably successfully WEC with Alpine and it seems that he’s a likely third/development driver for Cadillac as it could also offer him a more competitive sports car drive. After 3 years out of F1 I can’t see him making a racing return now. Personally I’d like to see Zhou get a go, there’s a Chinese marketing benefit & maybe some untapped potential that I’m interested to see if time as a Ferrari reserve might have unlocked. Bottas/Perez would be relatively dull for me, they’re both at similar stages of their career. I get they both have good experience of a top team, but for Cadillac - given their differing backgrounds - I think there’s a real risk they contradict each other. I suspect it’s a better way to make progress to pick one and have a clear path to follow - in the initial years either path will be “upward”.
I'm not sure an American team would want a Chinese driver with the current trade situation! OK so by 2026 season start it will probably all be water under the bridge but not sure an Americans teams first driver pairing being a Chinese and a Mexican driver will sit with their potential fans. I would quite like to see any combination of Perez and Zhou and Bottas. I do think they need experience for at least a couple of years to help them gel as a team.
Trade war is a fair point, but China is/was a major market for Cadillac and this kind of marketing/association tends to be more of a long game. There’s also a reasonably large and affluent Chinese market in the US to influence. I wouldn’t be surprised if they go Bottas/Perez, but I’d prefer they didn’t.
No no . No insider info whatsoever . Just a couple of clips of Valtteri on you tube and an interview with him where he was asked if he had been in touch with Cadillac , and he said yes .
I was directing that more at Push and the Perez intel (clarifying so they know I’m still interested to know). I think it’s fairly clear that Cadillac have had discussions with Mick, Zhou, Valtteri and Sergio and I think it’s always been fairly obvious they’d take one of the last two, and then someone else (including maybe the other).
You`re correct,it`s not yey confirmed but I did see this on Google. However, according to British outlet Planet F1, the Mexican driver has already reached an agreement with Cadillac, the new American team debuting in 2026, and the announcement is scheduled for the Italian Grand Prix in Monza (September 5–7). So perhaps better not jump to any conclusions just yet. Sorry for any confusion.
Thanks, I went and had a look at the article, honestly I think it’s just speculation/playing the odds. I’m suspicious because waiting for the Italian GP seems an odd choice. I get that just if they’ve just decided announcing it in the summer break wouldn’t be great, but that weekend is going to be dominated by “Hamilton’s first Italian GP in a Ferrari”. A month later you’ve got the US and Mexican GP’s back to back, which is the perfect moment to launch the team, especially if you are hiring Perez. I suspect Perez thing will be proven to be right though - he’s the obvious choice unless you think the RedBull experience destroyed him. They’ll obviously have a good idea of that through the negotiations, but for us on the outside I don’t think he ever gave that impression, Yuki/Lawson’s struggles have contextualised his own and RedBull’s eventual acknowledgment that they do have a car problem validates the feedback he was giving about the car. I’d really like him to get another go, because I’ve believed it was the car not him all along. At the time it was based on believing Max when he was telling everyone that was the case, but now I think we have the proof he’s the most deserving and suitable candidate.
I think Perez has been shown to be better than others thought. He deserves to be on the grid. Caddy have a lot to learn. F1 were very cruel to Honda, Caddy needs experienced drivers. On the Hamilton front, Ferrari's 15 years without top performance speaks. The team coalesced around Charles but still without success, although Charles felt the team failed him last time out. If Hamilton can shape the team such as they listen to him he might turn his and their fortunes around.
Regarding the second seat - if you assume it has to be someone not on the current grid, other than Zhou it’s really hard to build a case for anyone else. The article Push referenced, suggested Drugovich (AM Reserve) which is an interesting shout, if a bit left field. He’s got quite a a lot of experience with a developing team, will have been learning from and absorbing experience from Alonso and is one of the better drivers never to have been given a chance in F1. Equally he’s been around for a few years now and no one has tried to get him into a race seat yet, which might be telling.
On Ferrari, if they’re going to improve, I don’t see any reason that’s going to come from Hamilton. Most critically - in my opinion - Ferrari’s biggest issue is consistency and arguably that’s Hamilton’s greatest weakness too. Vowles talks about the importance of Albon and Sainz, but Williams are coming from much further back and a generation of not really competing, in the Cadillac discussion they’re starting effectively from scratch, so when the base is that low it seems the driver can play a key role. Outside of that I struggle to think of examples where drivers have made the difference in terms of adding the last couple of percentage - to the team. Alonso’s not changed the fortunes of any team he’s been at in the last 20 years, nor Vettel. You could argue that Schumacher for Benetton or Ferrari, but equally, they assembled Brawn, Byrne etc. in parallel and it’s more likely they were the key along with the Bridgestone alliance. McLaren’s resurgence seems to owe to a a technical reorganisation and bringing in some top talent from RedBull, for Mercedes the PU made the difference, the team was champion 5 years before anyhow + Brawn’s influence again was still being felt. Verstappen was key in winning 2021, but it was RedBull getting a proper PU that got them in the fight, really.
Well, I respect the career Hamilton has had, during which he has worked in two well organised teams. I am not suggesting he will necessarily win again but he knows how a well organised team works. Not something you can credit Ferrari with. Ferrari, constantly changing the head of the team. If you look at the two most successful teams of recent time, Redbull and Mercedes, the two heads have, till a few weeks ago, remained constant. Ferrari's problem is not the long history of drivers but the culture within. This is how I believe Hamilton can bring value, if he stays the course. Helping in shaping the team into a winning machine. He may not be a world champion again but he could help transition the team. Lewis grew frustrated at Mercedes because they took a wrong turn in the design for some years. I suspect Lewis can give Ferrari constructive feedback. Charles showed his frustration with Ferrari last time out, accusing them of not listening. The last time Ferrari were winning there was an inquiry that led to a reduction in performance. Ferrari's problem is structural, maybe even arrogance. Lewis may be the person to help them transition to a successful team again, albeit not necessarily for his own revival, but who knows.
Thanks, maybe I’m being stupid, but I’m really not getting the “why”? Vettel had experience of RedBull and went to Ferrari and it didn’t really make any difference. Bottas had experience of Merc and didn’t really impact even a team at Sauber’s level? That’s not a slight on either driver, it’s because history shows us this isn’t really the way drivers impact teams and I don’t see why do you think that will be different for the Hamilton/Ferrari situation? Please don’t think I mean to disparage him though. The on track performance hasn’t been the reset people hoped - it seems pretty clear now Hamilton hasn’t adapted to this ruleset and that next year as such represents an opportunity for him, but also a threat. However on the day he signed the share price jumped 33%, it’s been all over the place since - we’ll leave the politics at the door and just say that anything he’s done since actually joining doesn’t seem to have had any long term positive or negative effect - but it is still on average around the same today. That’s real long term value that he’s brought to Ferrari and it’s something no other driver would have done. If tomorrow we wake up and we find out he quit and Verstappen has signed to replace him, I’d expect most of that to disappear immediately. - that’s incredible! It’s not just money though, likely given the timing and the apparently rushed livery, Hamilton joining was crucial in onboarding HP and that’s a proper AI tech partnership that should bring performance to Ferrari.
