Perez targets three more F1 years as Cadillac project reignites his drive

Sergio Perez has set himself a three-year horizon in Formula 1, saying he wants to dedicate that time to developing Cadillac into a competitive force after joining the American outfit’s debut season alongside Valtteri Bottas.

The Mexican was released by Red Bull at the end of 2024 following a sharp decline in form. Although Perez finished second in the 2023 drivers’ championship, his performances faded as the year progressed, and he slipped to eighth overall in 2024 with just four podium finishes. After a year away from the grid, Cadillac offered him a route back, pairing him with Bottas to give the rookie team an experienced foundation.

Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Perez said the challenge of building a team from scratch has given him a sense of purpose he has rarely felt as a driver. “I really feel like this is a project,” he said. “I really feel like I’m part of this new era, like building something from scratch. Of course, I want to win championships and be fighting at the front. But if you don’t have that opportunity, I think Cadillac motivates me a lot. It’s like building a team from scratch and starting basically from last to see how far we can go together.”

He added that his involvement extends well beyond simply driving the car. “I feel like here I’m much more than a driver. They listen a lot to me on different things, on development and stuff. Only a few drivers can get that in their careers, and it’s the first time I can have this.”

On the question of when he will eventually walk away from the sport, Perez described a specific internal signal he is watching for. He said the decisive moment will come not when his pace drops, but when his mental engagement with the team begins to wane — when he finds himself thinking less about his engineers and his car during time away from the circuit.

“I think there’s a certain age where you start to drop,” he explained. “It’s the will, and you see it from the outside, when you’re not in the car, how much you’re thinking on your engineers, on your car. When you go away and you start thinking less and less on that, that’s the first alarm. Because when you’re young, all what you’re thinking is what’s coming next.”

For now, Perez says that alarm has not sounded. At 35, he sees the Cadillac project as the motivation keeping it at bay — and believes he has roughly three competitive seasons left to help the team make its mark on the grid.