{"id":8595,"date":"2025-04-10T17:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T17:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/8595\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T17:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T17:30:13","slug":"the-number-of-drivers-on-cadillacs-f1-2026-shortlist-amid-perez-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/8595\/","title":{"rendered":"The number of drivers on Cadillac’s F1 2026 shortlist amid Perez rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

With confirmation that Cadillac is officially joining the F1 grid in 2026 has come a flurry of rumours regarding the potential drivers who might represent the team, with names like Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas emerging as key contenders.<\/strong><\/p>\n

But is there truth to those rumours? How many drivers is Cadillac talking to? And how has the driver selection process gone overall? Team principal Graeme Lowdon has some answers.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeven or eight\u201d drivers on Cadillac F1 2026 shortlist<\/p>\n

It can be difficult to remember that Cadillac has only been a confirmed F1 2026 team for a few weeks. The team, which started out as Andretti Global and which evolved through a series of acceptances, rejections, and negotiations into Cadillac F1, was nothing more than a possibility until March of 2025.<\/p>\n

While team principal Graeme Lowdon and financier Dan Towriss have been spotted in the paddock on a fairly regular basis, they have largely been operating on a shaky foundation. It\u2019s only in the past month that they\u2019ve truly been able to start dipping a toe into the driver market, hoping to secure some top talent to ease the team into life as a top-notch competitor.<\/p>\n

It hasn\u2019t been easy. Speaking to Speed City Broadcasting<\/strong>, Lowdon noted that negotiations have only really begun recently thanks to the delay in official confirmation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was a big disadvantage that we weren\u2019t able to participate in the last round of the driver market, effectively, because it wasn\u2019t fair for us to do so when we didn\u2019t have a confirmed entry,\u201d Lowdon explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor sure, we could meet with drivers and talk to them, but without the entry confirmation, you can\u2019t really claim that marketplace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re now out of sync with a lot of the teams, because a lot of teams concluded arrangements then that span the introduction of new regulations in \u201926, but the upside is, there\u2019s a bunch of extremely good drivers out there who are all hungry to be either in F1 or back in F1, and so there\u2019s no shortage of potential applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on Cadillac in Formula 1:<\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49 Cadillac F1: Everything you need to know about the new 11th team<\/a><\/p>\n

\ud83d\udc49\u00a0Cadillac F1: Who are the key personnel at America\u2019s latest Formula 1 team?<\/a><\/p>\n

One such potential applicant is former Red Bull Racing driver Sergio Perez; recently, rumours have emerged that the Mexican driver is not just a strong candidate, but that he has been in \u2018advanced talks\u2019 with the American team.<\/p>\n

Lowdon wouldn\u2019t go so far as to claim Perez was a lock, saying that \u201cwe\u2019re only in very early stages\u201d of negotiations with all drivers at the moment.<\/p>\n

However, he did confirm that Cadillac is\u00a0\u201ceither planning or have spoken to probably seven or eight drivers altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team principal wasn\u2019t prepared to list of any names, but he did suggest that \u201cit\u2019d\u00a0be no surprise that anybody who has got recent Formula 1 experience will be included in that list.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019d stress that at the moment, any discussions are very preliminary,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are just really trying to get to know what people\u2019s interest levels are, what their motivations are, and that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly not in advanced discussions with any driver.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there are drawbacks to getting involved in the negotiation game later than the existing F1 teams, Lowdon did note the \u201clucky position\u201d they\u2019re in when it comes to potential driver options.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of people with a lot of experience \u2014 not just \u2018turn up an drive\u2019 experience; people who\u2019ve been in championship winning teams or race winning teams,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut also, people who are younger, who\u2019ve got experience as well. Also promising drivers who haven\u2019t yet had concrete experience, but they have proven themselves in junior formula and junior categories as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsidering we were not able to be active in that last driver market, we\u2019re in a reasonably good position at the moment in terms of putting together a driver lineup for \u201926, and we said a number of times, the driver lineup selection will be on merit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy that all of the drivers that we\u2019re having early discussions with are perfectly capable Formula 1 drivers, and perfectly capable of leading a good, professional team.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read next:\u00a0Sergio Perez in \u2018advanced talks\u2019 with Cadillac F1 over F1 2026 return \u2013 report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With confirmation that Cadillac is officially joining the F1 grid in 2026 has come a flurry of rumours…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4103],"tags":[5621,4199,707,4200,5622,225,12,706,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-8595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-cadillac","9":"tag-f1","10":"tag-formula-1","11":"tag-formula1","12":"tag-graeme-lowdon","13":"tag-home-page","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-sergio-perez","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114314859846159477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}