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Yet another DNF for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas: ‘Sometimes we don’t quite understand it’
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- Yet another DNF for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas: ‘Sometimes we don’t quite understand it’
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Valtteri Bottas described the Cadillac Formula 1 team as struggling to understand its issues, after he retired from Sunday's United States Grand Prix.
Bottas suffered his ninth retirement of the season at the Circuit of The Americas, a surprisingly high number for a driver whose pre-2026 DNF rate was 11%.
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Of those nine, eight were linked to technical problems, and that was the case again with a suspected power-unit issue in Austin. "It's always disappointing not to finish, but it didn't sound great from the engine side, like physically," the Finn commented.
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Cadillac still needs to iron out its gremlins, in terms of both reliability and performance, but this may not occur until next year's challenger takes to the track.
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"I would say it's impossible to get a read on a year like this with so many issues," Bottas added. "And the problem is sometimes we don't quite understand them. So it's really still a steep learning curve to go.
"There's been lots of things in the background that maybe not everyone sees, like the brake management, the amount of having to deal with that and all these things. But at the same time, like I said, sometimes there's been some issues that we're struggling to see."
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing
Still, both cars briefly mingled with the Aston Martins and Williams in the Austin race, though they eventually fell adrift. Perez finished the race some 20 seconds behind Fernando Alonso , Alexander Albon and Carlos Sainz , which actually was a marked improvement; Bottas was just five seconds shy of his team-mate when he retired.
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"It was at times quite positive to see that we were pretty close to some other cars on pace," Bottas said, while Perez felt hindered by his strategy. "Unfortunately I think with the timing of the blue flags we lost a lot of race time, because as we pitted we basically went straight into the blue flags," the Mexican claimed. Data shows he was lapped on lap 28 after pitting on lap 23.
As for why Cadillac was more competitive than usual in Texas, the pair had different theories.
"I think it's very, very track-dependent," Perez reckoned. "In the race I was surprised that we were a bit closer in that regard."
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"I think today what helped was the cloud cover," Bottas pointed out. "It was a bit cooler today, we know we are not great when it's high temperatures, so that helped a bit. But I thought it was going to be more difficult for us here, honestly. So that's why it's kind of positive, and Mexico should be hopefully a bit better for us."
While Cadillac won't be hindered by its lack of downforce to the same extent at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, warm temperatures – some 26C ambient – and sunshine are currently forecast for both qualifying and the race.
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