2026 AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX — QUALIFYING REPORT
March 7, 2026 — Albert Park Circuit, Australia — The Cadillac Formula 1® Team today completed its debut Qualifying session in preparation for its historic first race, the Australian Grand Prix. The American squad worked methodically through its program to execute a strong session, with Checo Perez lining up 18th and Valtteri Bottas just behind in 19th of the 22-car field.
The 58-lap race gets underway at 15:00hrs local time. Checo Perez: Qualified: P18 Q1: 1:22.605 “Today has been a really special day. It’s been a massive effort for the team to be here with both cars, doing Qualifying to a high level and able to maximize what we could do. While it was a challenging session, I was happy with the balance, happy with the lap. All I can ask for tomorrow is to do more of the same. For now, I’m ready to go forward, have a really strong race – the target is obviously to finish.” Valtteri Bottas: Qualified: P19 Q1: 1:23.244 “It was great to be out there completing our first-ever Qualifying as a team. Not the most trouble-free Q1 with the red flag but I’m glad we’ve completed every session so far this weekend. We’re here and ready to race tomorrow so that’s another achievement. We’re lacking performance but it’s a work in progress, which will come. We had to start somewhere with the direction now being pretty clear on where to push and how to develop the car. Looking ahead to tomorrow, we’ll aim to maximize our strategy, see if there are any opportunities and take the checkered flag with both cars.” Graeme Lowdon, Team Principal: "I’m extremely happy with how the team performed. We have said all along that we would measure ourselves by how we execute and operate as a team and we did that really well today. Our strategy was to have three runs, but the red flag disrupted that, sadly. Valtteri’s car lost a lot of time on the back straight and we need to find out why we didn’t get the most out of the package, but all in all, a fantastic team effort for our first-ever Qualifying. It gives us a solid base to go racing tomorrow.”