Sergio Perez set to join Valtteri Bottas at Cadillac: Reports

With Valtteri Bottas in line to sign with Cadillac, Sergio Perez's path to join the American team might have cleared as well, according to reports. With the driver pairing slated to take to the F1 grid next year, it will be the first season when the two will be teammates in the pinnacle of motorsports.

Perez made his debut in 2011 and took a decade to land a seat at a front-running outfit, Red Bull. While his stay at the Milton Keynes-based squad was marked with race victories and podiums, last year became the breaking point for the alliance as the Mexican struggled to reach points, while his teammate won the championship.

This led Red Bull to buy him out of his contract, as Perez decided to stay off the F1 grid for the 2025 season. While initially, some experts reckoned that the 35-year-old would not return, this stance soon changed, as Cadillac was expected to sign experienced drivers for its debut season in 2026.

Bottas is regarded as the first driver that the American outfit signed, and now Perez has joined the suit, as per reports from The Race. The new F1 entry is expected to host a lineup with the combined experience of over 500 Grand Prix starts.

Moreover, the announcement regarding the pair's signing is slated to be made later in the month.

---

How taking a sabbatical has helped Sergio Perez?

Sergio Perez after the qualifying for the F1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix 2024 - Source: Getty

Sergio Perez's 2024 season featured a mere four podium finishes. The sparse results after the first half of the season urged Red Bull to end its initial agreement.

The sudden advancement regarding his departure from the F1 grid, alongside the lack of results, led him away from the sport. With him getting some time off the fast-moving F1 world, he got time to re-evaluate himself, as he told F1's official website:

"It's been great to have this amount of time to step back a bit, see the sport from the outside and be able to realise the journey that I’ve had so far in many areas. I feel like I’m in a privileged position with my career, knowing that I’ve always maximised all my opportunities and that to me as an athlete is very important."

Perez also talked about how his tenure with the Austrian giant led people to forget how difficult a car the Red Bull was to drive, with the team facing a dearth of points from the second seat. He said:

"I spent so long in Red Bull that everyone forgot how difficult the car is to drive, so that was tricky."

Cadillac would be Sergio Perez's sixth different F1 team in his racing career.