Motor racing-Cadillac F1 debut exceeded expectations, says team CEO Towriss

By Alan Baldwin

March 8 (Reuters) - Cadillac's Formula One race debut exceeded expectations even if they got only one car across the finish line in Melbourne on Sunday, the General Motors-backed team's chief executive Dan Towriss said.

Mexican Sergio Perez finished 16th, three laps behind Mercedes' race winner George Russell, while Finnish teammate Valtteri Bottas retired after 15 laps to protect his car's Ferrari power unit.

"I think one of the things that I take away from this weekend is that it went so well," Towriss said in a video call.

"Morale is high and it makes everybody that much more hungry to move forward ... everybody is hungry, fired up: 'We're here, we exceeded our expectations, now let's go. Let's work even harder, let's push even harder'.

"Whether it's Valtteri, Checo (Perez), across the team."

Perez, who sat out all of last season after leaving Red Bull in 2024, declared after the race that the honeymoon was over for the sport's 11th and newest team, and Towriss agreed.

RESPECTABLE ON SPEED WITH NO SILLY MISTAKES

Asked what the expectations had really been for an outfit that only secured their entry a year ago, and who have had a massively steep learning curve, Towriss said it was about being respectable on speed and avoiding stupid mistakes.

He reported that General Motors' chief executive Mary Barra and the Detroit carmaker's president Mark Reuss, who were in attendance along with U.S. racing great and team board member Mario Andretti, had been "elated".

"You do everything for the first time and, you know, we're doing all this while we're building the company," he added. "I think sometimes it's easy to lose sight of that. And so it creates a different set of expectations.

"And so the expectations for me were I wanted to progress, that we were better in FP2 (second practice) vs FP1, FP3, qualifying, in the race. And I really feel like this team continued to make progress throughout the weekend."

Cadillac knew already before the cars had even hit the track in Melbourne that they were unlikely to be last, with Aston Martin suffering battery and power unit problems that restricted the number of laps they could do.

McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Audi's Nico Hulkenberg both failed to start.

That took some of the heat off the newcomers but Towriss, who recognised he had hoped both cars would finish, shrugged that off.

"From my standpoint, it doesn't change how I feel about this weekend either way," he said of the misfortunes of others. "I think we look ahead and say 'what's the gap? How do we close that gap relative to other teams?'"