Cadillac's First Home Race: Perez, Bottas, and the American F1 Experiment
GM finally has its F1 team, and Miami is where Cadillac stops being a paddock curiosity and becomes a real American racing story.
There's a new American team on the F1 grid, and this weekend it gets to race in front of an American crowd for the first time. Cadillac's Miami debut is one of the quieter big stories of 2026 — a project that's been in the works for years, has survived more political drama than most teams ever face, and now finally has to put numbers on the board.
The Lineup
Cadillac went veteran on its driver pairing: Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. Two former championship contenders. Two drivers who've stood on F1 podiums next to generational talent. Two drivers who'd been written off and now have something to prove. Both will have huge backing in the paddock this weekend, and Perez has already framed Miami as the team's biggest test yet — a chance to validate everything they've built so far against the full chaos of a Sprint weekend.
The Bonus Story
Cadillac's third driver, Colton Herta — the IndyCar transplant whose Formula 2 schedule was supposed to be split across the calendar — gets an unexpected American showcase. With the cancellations of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia rerouting F2 to North America, Herta is racing F2 in front of home fans at Miami this weekend, then again in Montreal. For the first time ever, F2 is racing on this continent, and the most-watched American open-wheel transition story of the year is happening on the support card.
Realistic Expectations
Cadillac sits at the back of the grid, where most expansion teams sit in their first year. The car is roughly two seconds off the front-running pace, and most paddock predictions still have them at the rear of the constructors' table at year-end. That's not the bar this weekend. The bar is reliability, mileage, learning, and giving the brand its big American moment without an embarrassing DNF on national TV. Get those four right, and Cadillac walks out of Miami a stronger team than it walked in.
F1 has wanted a real American team for decades. It now has one — with American manufacturer money, two world-class drivers, and a home race that just happens to be the splashiest stop on the calendar. Sunday won't decide their season. But it might decide how Americans feel about them.
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