Perez reveals he is actively steering Cadillac's F1 personnel recruitment drive

Sergio Perez is using his 14 years of paddock connections to shape Cadillac’s recruitment strategy ahead of the American team’s debut Formula 1 season, telling the Beyond the Grid podcast that he has actively flagged personnel targets to the team’s decision-makers.

The 35-year-old is clear that final hiring authority does not rest with him, but he has not held back from making his views known. “I’ve been trying to get a few people, of course, but at the end of the day, you have to also know your position,” Perez said. “I am not the one that takes those decisions on who I bring and who I hire. It is not my role. But I obviously try to influence and try to tell the team, ‘I think this guy will be good if he comes’ and so on.”

Perez’s career arc — spanning Sauber, McLaren, Force India, Racing Point and Red Bull — has left him with working relationships across a significant portion of the current grid’s technical workforce, giving him a broader-than-average view of available talent. He says that standing is already translating into genuine interest from paddock figures. “All I can see is that the appetite for Cadillac around the paddock is rising every time,” he added. “And that’s something good to have as a Formula 1 team.”

Cadillac’s entry as F1’s 11th constructor has widened the sport’s job market, though it has also intensified competition for engineers and specialists — a point of friction with several established teams during the entry approval process.

Beyond individual hires, Perez argued that Cadillac’s parent company General Motors brings structural advantages that other newcomers have lacked. He pointed to GM’s deep motorsport heritage across its various brands as a source of cross-series knowledge that could accelerate the team’s development curve.

“GM is a manufacturer that has done motorsport for their entire career,” Perez said. “The level of competitiveness in the US is extremely high. We’ve been able to learn stuff from them.”

He drew a parallel with McLaren’s F1 operation benefiting from technical insights originating in its IndyCar programme, suggesting that openness to ideas from outside Formula 1’s established methods could give Cadillac an unconventional edge. “There’s a lot we can learn from other series, other ways of doing things,” he said. “As long as you have your mechanism very clear and you are able to deliver the idea quickly to the track, then that’s positive.”