2026 CHINESE GRAND PRIX — SPRINT RACE & QUALIFYING REPORT
March 14, 2026 — Shanghai International Circuit, China — Today marked another first for the Cadillac Formula 1® Team as it finished its debut Sprint Race in Formula 1™. Checo Perez brought the MAC-26 home in 19th place following the 19-lap Sprint, giving the American squad a second consecutive race finish in its debut Formula 1™ season. Valtteri Bottas demonstrated strong pace but did not finish following a loss of power on lap 12.
Valtteri and Checo then moved on to participate in Qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix. The duo will line up for tomorrow's race in 20th and 22nd positions respectively. Checo Perez: Sprint Race Started: 21st Finished: 19th Fastest Lap: 1:38.862 Qualifying Position: 22nd Q1: 1:36.906 “We were able to gain more information today and learned a lot in the Sprint going forward for the Grand Prix. Unfortunately Qualifying was compromised as we were late, lost a run and then a deployment issue cost us a lot of time. I think there was quite a bit more potential in it. It’s still early days for the team, we are learning every day as it comes and hopefully tomorrow we can have a good race with the teams around us and get both cars to the finish.” Valtteri Bottas: Sprint Race Started: 20th Finished: DNF Fastest Lap: 1:39.262 Qualifying Position: 20th Q1: 1:35.436 “My first clean Qualifying session so that's always a positive feeling. I really felt like the last two laps were very clean and I got the most out of our package. We out-qualified one Aston Martin, and [Fernando] Alonso was only two tenths ahead. There is still work to do as a team when it comes to reliability and performance. We’ll try to take all the learnings from today’s Sprint into tomorrow’s race with the aim of finishing with both cars for the first time.”
Today showed a step forward in performance, which is encouraging. While neither the Sprint nor Qualifying were trouble-free, we’re moving closer to the teams in front in terms of pace. The aim is clearly to get on top of the issues we’ve seen this weekend and have both cars running consistently reliably. When we get to this point, we can be in the mix, racing.
- Graeme Lowdon, Team Principal