On a day when Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc stole the headlines with an emotional British Grand Prix win, the Fishers Cadillac Formula 1 team quietly delivered one of its more encouraging afternoons of a demanding rookie season, bringing both cars home and gaining track position at one of the sport’s most storied venues.
Sergio Perez crossed the line 15th and Valtteri Bottas 17th in a race that finished behind the safety car after a dramatic late sequence of events. It was not the points-scoring breakthrough the team is chasing, but for an outfit that spent the winter openly warning it would run at the back of the grid in year one, a clean race with forward progress counts as a step in the right direction.
Perez, the six-time grand prix winner, made the most of the afternoon. He started 20th and but picked his way up to 15th over the course of the race, benefiting from a chaotic finish but also from the steady, mistake-free running that has become Cadillac’s calling card in its debut campaign. Bottas, who out-qualified his teammate in 18th on Saturday, brought the sister car home 17th, keeping the team’s strong reliability record intact.
The result came on a weekend that showcased both how far Cadillac has come and how far it still has to go. The team, which is constructing its permanent headquarters in Fishers, entered Formula 1 this season as the grid’s 11th team, pairing veteran drivers Perez and Bottas with customer Ferrari power. Team leadership, including racing boss Graeme Lowdon, tempered expectations from the outset, telling stakeholders that points would be a bonus rather than a target in 2026 as the organization builds toward the future.
That candor has been borne out by results. Cadillac has yet to score a championship point through the opening stretch of the season, and Silverstone extended that wait. The closest the team has come was in Monaco, where Perez ran inside the top 10 on the road before a penalty erased a hard-won point. Still, the operation has impressed with its dependability — Perez has reached the checkered flag in nearly every race he has started, a rarity for a brand-new team facing the steep learning curve of top-flight motorsport.
Sunday’s race itself was a spectacle. Leclerc claimed his first win in more than a year after championship leader Kimi Antonelli suffered a mechanical failure while closing in on the lead, and a late crash for Max Verstappen brought out the safety car that ultimately decided the finish. Mercedes’ George Russell took second and Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton third in front of a roaring home crowd. Amid the drama, Cadillac’s two cars ran their own race near the tail of the field, gaining ground and gathering data.
For fans in Fishers watching a hometown-connected team compete on the world stage, the takeaway is one of patience and gradual momentum. The points haven’t come yet, and the team has been honest that they may be slow to arrive. But finishing races, climbing the order, and learning with every lap is exactly the foundation Cadillac said it would build in 2026 — and at Silverstone, that foundation looked a little more solid than it did a few months ago.