Valtteri Bottas confirms major Cadillac F1 decision 'coming soon'

Valtteri Bottas has confirmed that Cadillac will soon cease the development of its 2026 F1 car as it switches focus to next year's challenger.

Cadillac joined the F1 grid this year after several years of preparation, and as was heavily expected, it took up a position at the rear of the field.

Bottas, as well as fellow F1 veteran Sergio Perez, have been guiding development of the car with their feedback as the team gets up to speed in the sport.

More parts are coming to the car in the near future, but Bottas insisted that it will soon decide to switch over its resources to the 2027 car in a bid to start next year's campaign on the front foot.

“We still have something coming performance-wise, but no magic, nothing huge,” Bottas told media including RacingNews365. 

“So obviously, there is a point that we need to shift our focus 100 per cent for next year, which is coming soon. 

“It means that we can still make progress, but big steps are more challenging to make because everyone is still bringing their last upgrades.”

Cadillac has successfully implemented upgrades across the first half of the campaign and even overtook Aston Martin in the pecking order before the latter introduced a boosted package last time out in Hungary.

Despite Cadillac's position in the pecking order, Bottas stated the team should be encouraged by the performance of its upgrades.

“Everything we brought to the car has made it quicker, has made it better, so that's really positive for a new team,” he said.

“It's not a guarantee in F1 that the parts that you put in the car actually work. That's promising for the future. So we've made steps. 

“We haven't made like huge steps, but we've seen progress. What's been quite evident, if we compare ourselves to Aston, as they haven't really been upgrading the car yet, we've seen that we've been able to get further away from them by quite a good chunk.

“That has come from these small improvements.”