Overview
- Valtteri Bottas says Cadillac has improved its lap pace since its Australia debut but still occupies a fragile midfield 'no man’s land' where it races close to Haas and Williams without reliably beating them.
- A major upgrade at the Austrian Grand Prix caused brake overheating and fires that forced both Bottas and Sergio Perez to retire in the opening laps and deprived the team of key race mileage to validate the package.
- The Silverstone weekend marked a short-term recovery with both cars finishing and Perez matching his best result of the season, which provided engineers the usable running data they lacked after Austria.
- Cadillac has confirmed it will bring further upgrade parts to Spa in two weeks as it seeks to resolve remaining cooling and reliability issues and convert raw pace into consistent midfield finishes.
- The team faces a trade-off between bringing parts quickly and fully validating them on track, and its immediate prospects now hinge on Spa mileage, clearer brake-cooling integration, and quicker feedback for engineers and drivers.