Cadillac had questions about Sergio Perez’s motivation after the disappointing end of his time at Red Bull, but was completely convinced to sign him after meetings with the six -time racing winner.
Perez signed a two -year contract extension last summer with Red Bull, but was then dropped at the end of 2024 after scoring only 33 points in the last 13 rounds. The Mexican was left without a chair this season, but was signed by Cadillac for his debut season next to Valtteri Bottas, and Cadillac F1 team and TWG Motorsports CEO Dan Towriss says that the team has tackled the departure of Perez from Red Bull during the talks.
“Certainly, there was a lot of conversation around the gorge, which was out for a whole year,” said Towriss. “I think when you look at Valtteri, he is on the track every weekend, right? And so it was important for us to know where to be Sergios to be back in Formula 1, and also his belief in our project in leading the Cadillac Formula 1 team. And we can’t be satisfied with his answer.
“I think he performed better again, in our meetings with him, I think. If you said we had questions, we had skepticism around some of these things and he answered all our questions, our tests with flying colors succeeded. And so we were happy to bring him forward.”
The poor form of form for Perez came while teammate Max Verstappen won the driver’s championship, but the subsequent struggles for both Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda at Red Bull also played a role in the thinking of Cadillac while looking beyond the results of every driver.
“We spent a lot of time viewing experiences from the past and a kind of what the state of the world was in Sauber, and really how Valtteri performed with the car that is there and a kind of qualifying performance versus race performance,” Towriss added.
“And in particular in particular, it was probably more complicated scenario Red Bull, right? That was an interesting kind of saga to look at, a team that was really built around one driver, but has two. And clearly none of the other drivers did well in that second chair from that point of view.
“So we need a lot of time to talk to people at Red Bull and to get information and feedback. The process was long and thorough from that point of view.
“And again, I think what that means is that we have looked at all that, we feel very good about Checo, his wish to be in Formula 1, to make a statement, to show the performance he has and to show that last season or so of Red Bull in the rearview mirror.”
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