Cadillac's scoreboard after seven Grands Prix reads zero points, but that number hides how far the American newcomer has travelled. Its cars are quicker, its upgrades are doing what the design office promised, and the midfield is no longer disappearing up the road. What Cadillac cannot yet manage is getting both cars to the flag.
Silverstone offered the clearest sign of progress. The team finally rolled out an aero package it had been previewing for weeks. "In theory, it's a good step forward. I think we're talking a region of 10 points of downforce, which is a decent step," Valtteri Bottas said, though he tempered it as he has all season: "A few tenths, I think, in theory. But yeah, again, we're going to see."
On track it delivered. "I think we have improved our pace overall," Bottas reported. "At times, especially on the hard tyre, it felt like we were a bit closer to the midfield while keeping a good margin from Aston throughout the whole race." Sergio Perez was even more upbeat. "Overall it was a good race and probably one of our best so far this season," he said. "With just a little bit more speed we will really be in the mix with the midfield teams and then we can start to challenge a bit more."
The trajectory is measurable. Perez was six tenths off Fernando Alonso in qualifying in Australia; at Silverstone Bottas beat an Alpine and sat within half a second of the slower Haas. From three laps down in Melbourne, Cadillac is now scrapping directly with Haas and Williams.
Team principal Graeme Lowdon, assembling the Fishers, Indiana squad from the ground up, keeps the optimism grounded. "There is real progress. In terms of race pace, accuracy of upgrade predictions, all these kinds of things that aren't seen," he said, stressing the team's inexperience: "This is only our fifth weekend of Grand Prix racing, so we're doing so many things for the first time that other teams have been doing for a long, long time."
Reliability remains the anchor. Brake fires ended both cars' race in Austria, one more DNF in a season that has repeatedly denied the team mileage. "It was without warning, everything was under control in free practice," Bottas said. "But on Sunday, with the slight increase in temperature and the effect of traffic, things caught fire on lap 2." What stung most was the lost data: "If we don't finish races, then we really can't learn much from the car and the package either. We have to finish the race, that's when we can learn."
Lowdon is adamant the gremlins are solvable, describing an earlier suspension failure as "something that's easily preventable." String together two clean finishes, and Cadillac's maiden points may arrive sooner than the standings suggest.
