Sergio Perez hasn’t scored a point all season, but according to the man himself, he’s been busy doing something else useful: whispering names into Cadillac’s ear. Turns out when you’ve spent years driving for half the paddock, you pick up a decent contacts book. Whether that’s a substitute for actual results is another matter entirely.
The Unofficial Job Perez Has Given Himself
Speaking on F1’s Beyond the Grid podcast, Perez admitted he has no formal say in who Cadillac brings through the door, but that hasn’t stopped him lobbying on behalf of people he rates.
“I mean, I obviously know a lot of good people out there, you know, I’ve been in this paddock for a long time. 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. And I am not the one that takes those decisions on who I bring and who I hire.” – Sergio Perez
Fair enough on the surface, drivers don’t usually sign off on engineering hires. But there’s something almost defensive about the way Perez frames it, as if he’s keen to remind everyone he still has value beyond a car that’s delivered nothing this year. He continued:
“It is not my role. But I obviously try to influence and try to tell the team, I mean, ‘I think this guy will be good if he comes’ and so on. And all I can see is that the appetite for Cadillac around the paddock is rising every time. And that’s something good to have as a Formula 1 team.” – Sergio Perez
An 11th Team Means an Arms Race for Staff
Cadillac’s arrival on the grid this season didn’t just add a car and two drivers, it added a competitor in the far less glamorous fight for engineers and mechanics. That’s precisely why several existing outfits grumbled about a new entry in the first place: more teams means more mouths chasing the same pool of talent, and salaries only go one way when that happens.
Perez, who has raced for Sauber, McLaren, Force India/Racing Point and Red Bull across his career, clearly sees his little black book as one of the few genuine assets he brings to a team still searching for its first point. As reported by Motorsport.com, he says the interest from within the paddock in joining Cadillac keeps growing, which, if true, is at least one sign the project has credibility beyond the results sheet.
General Motors’ Motorsport Muscle
Perez also pointed to General Motors’ broader motorsport pedigree as a genuine advantage, arguing that a manufacturer with decades of racing experience across other categories brings more than just a badge and a chequebook.
“I do believe [in GM’s operational set-up] because GM, it’s a manufacturer that has done motorsport for their entire career. And the level of competitiveness in the US, it’s extremely high. I mean, they’ve been very helpful in a lot of ways. We’ve been able to learn stuff from them.” – Sergio Perez
He drew a comparison with McLaren’s cross-pollination between its Formula 1 and IndyCar operations, suggesting Cadillac could benefit from similar knowledge transfer.
“There’s a lot we can learn from other series, other ways of doing things. For example, McLaren was able to get advantage from their IndyCar team a few years ago with how they were treating the ride and stuff like that. So there’s always room to improve and learn things. I think 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.” – Sergio Perez
Nice Theory, Shame About the Scoreboard
All of this sounds sensible in principle. Cross-series learning has worked before, and a fresh manufacturer with deep pockets and racing DNA should, in theory, be a shortcut to competitiveness. But Cadillac’s rookie season has been anything but smooth: no points on the board, reliability headaches including brake fires and a suspension failure for Perez himself in Canada, and a mid-season managerial shake-up that saw team principal Graeme Lowdon sacked and replaced by Marcin Budkowski, as Bottas addressed when discussing his own future at the team.
Perez’s team-mate Valtteri Bottas has said he isn’t worried about his seat in the short term, but admitted he expected changes to come at factory level rather than in the form of a leadership cull. That instability is precisely the kind of backdrop against which “influencing hires” starts to sound less like strategic input and more like a driver filling the gaps left by a season with nothing else to shout about.
Talking a Good Game While the Results Stay Blank
None of this makes Perez wrong to lean on his contacts. Every experienced driver does it, and if Cadillac genuinely wants to build something lasting rather than just make up the numbers, having a paddock veteran vouch for personnel is a reasonable use of his experience. But it’s worth remembering that recruitment chatter doesn’t put points on the board, and with both Cadillac cars still sitting on zero, Perez’s most persuasive contribution to the team right now might be happening in conversations, not in the car.
