Formula 1 came back from its summer break Sunday with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort, and for the Cadillac Formula 1 team — soon to call Fishers home once its headquarters under construction is completed — the weekend was a reminder of how steep the climb remains in the team’s first season.
Sergio Perez brought his Cadillac home 15th, two laps down, after starting the race from the pit lane. Teammate Valtteri Bottas retired late in the race, adding another did-not-finish to a season that has been defined by reliability trouble. Through 15 rounds, neither Cadillac driver has scored a championship point — the only team on the grid that can say that.
The weekend was uphill from the start. Zandvoort ran F1’s sprint format, and Perez’s car suffered a hydraulic problem Saturday morning that the crew scrambled to repair before the sprint race, where he finished 21st. Bottas took 19th. In qualifying for Sunday’s grand prix, Bottas managed only 21st and Perez 22nd, last on the grid.
That prompted a roll of the dice. Cadillac changed the suspension setup on Perez’s car overnight — a breach of F1’s parc fermé rules that meant he had to start from the pit lane — betting the change would pay off in the mixed conditions expected Sunday. He was one of 15 classified finishers in a chaotic race that saw home favorite Max Verstappen crash out on the opening lap on a damp track, bringing out red flags, with Bottas, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll and Ollie Bearman also failing to finish. McLaren’s Lando Norris won ahead of Mercedes drivers Kimi Antonelli and George Russell in what is scheduled to be the final Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort.
Cadillac’s team leadership has been frank about where the first-year outfit stands. “The pace we showed is representative of where we are at this stage,” chief racing officer Marc Hynes said after Saturday’s sessions, noting the team ran different approaches on the two cars to gather information.
The result extends a rough stretch for the American team, which suffered double retirements in both Austria and Hungary before the break, several of them tied to a recurring brake-cooling problem. Perez came closest to points back in Monaco, where he provisionally finished 10th before a procedural penalty dropped him out of the top 10.
Why does any of this matter in Hamilton County? Because this team’s long-term home is rising right here in Fishers. The headquarters remains under construction, and the team has signaled the facility will become increasingly central to its operations: United Kingdom-based employees have been told to relocate to Indiana by January 2027, and the team has said it plans to employ roughly 300 people at the Fishers campus, complementing operations in Silverstone, England; Concord, North Carolina; and Warren, Michigan. The team also shook up its leadership this summer, with Marcin Budkowski taking over from Graeme Lowdon as team principal.
Growing pains on the track, in other words, are part of a much larger project — one whose center of gravity is steadily shifting toward Fishers. Nine races remain in the 2026 season, with the Italian Grand Prix at Monza up next on Sept. 6.