Perez retires, Bottas finishes last at Spanish Grand Prix; team still winless as Indiana factory nears completion

The Formula 1 team building its world headquarters in Fishers had another hard afternoon Sunday, this time on a brand-new circuit in Spain.

The Cadillac Formula 1 Team left the inaugural Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid’s Madring circuit with nothing to show for it. Sergio Perez retired on lap 31 with what the team described as a suspected water system issue. Valtteri Bottas was classified 18th and last among the cars still running at the finish, three laps behind the leader after two pit stops.

Italian driver Kimi Antonelli won the race for Mercedes, holding off Max Verstappen by 4.351 seconds. McLaren’s Lando Norris, who started from the pole, finished third after a Virtual Safety Car period caught him just past the pit entrance and cost him the lead.

The result leaves Cadillac 11th and last in the constructors’ championship with zero points through 14 rounds. Mercedes leads with 503.

For Fishers residents, the more consequential story is unfolding at East 96th Street and Hague Road, near the Indianapolis Metropolitan Airport. The team’s 400,000-square-foot, $200 million headquarters remains under construction, and it is designed to eventually house roughly 300 engineers and technicians who will build Formula 1 chassis in Hamilton County.

That work is not happening here yet. Through the 2026 season, Cadillac has run its race operation out of Silverstone, England, with additional facilities in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Warren, Michigan. The Fishers campus is meant to pull that scattered operation together under one roof.

As LarryInFishers reported in August, some of the team’s United Kingdom-based employees have been told they will need to relocate to Indiana by January 2027 or risk losing their positions. Team leadership has said staffing decisions will not turn on nationality, and that Cadillac intends to keep recruiting from British motorsport talent while developing American engineers.

The team also changed leadership this season, with Marcin Budkowski replacing Graeme Lowdon as team principal for what executives have described as the operation’s U.S.-centered phase.

None of that changes the scoreboard in the short term. A first-year Formula 1 team competing against Mercedes, Ferrari and McLaren was never expected to score much, and Cadillac has not. But the investment being poured into the ground on the east side of Fishers is a long-term bet, and city officials have pointed to it as an anchor for further development near the airport.

Cadillac’s next chance comes at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku, Sept. 24-26. The season runs through Abu Dhabi in December.