‘A lot of progress in a short space of time’ – Why Cadillac had their 'strongest race so far' in Japan Cadillac may not have any points to show for their efforts, but they have already ticked off several milestones in the opening races. Cadillac have come a long way already in 2026, even though the Formula 1 season is just three rounds old. The recent Japanese Grand Prix weekend was their best collective performance yet and, in the space of less than a month, the American squad have already made major strides. The fact that both Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas have finished two successive races is no mean feat. While it may be a matter of baby steps, the weekend in Suzuka marked a significant step forward in terms of progress, which puts them in an exciting position to build on heading into the rest of the year. What happened in Japan? Cadillac arrived in Japan with the hope of replicating their latest achievement from the Chinese Grand Prix, where they ticked off their first double car finish despite making contact on the first lap. Things didn’t get off to the greatest start, however, as Perez sustained damage in FP1 after he and Williams’ Alex Albon made contact. The fixes were relatively straightforward and crucially, neither Cadillac driver suffered any reliability problems throughout the Free Practice sessions – this allowed them to instead focus on their performance and set-ups, and they headed into Qualifying feeling encouraged. Unfortunately, issues with energy deployment limited the team to P19 and P20 on the grid with Perez leading. Although they found themselves 1.279s away from getting into Q2, the team took it as a positive that they outqualified both Aston Martins for the first time. They then opted to split the strategy