By Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) -Race winner Sergio Perez reckons he can get back onto the Formula One podium with Cadillac, even if the sport's newest team will likely also be the slowest when they debut
next season.
The Mexican and his Finnish teammate Valtteri Bottas are not short of experience, with a combined 527 starts and 16 grand prix victories, but at 36 both will be returning from an involuntary year on the sidelines.
Perez, dropped as Max Verstappen's Red Bull teammate at the end of 2023, has 39 career podiums and sees no reason why he cannot take his tally to 40 before he finally calls it a day.
"Yes, I think so. I really believe it," the former Sauber, McLaren and Force India/Racing Point driver told Reuters from Cadillac's Silverstone factory where he was having a seat-fit for the team's 2026 car.
"I think I've been on the podium with all the teams I drove for, except McLaren," he added.
"I think we're going to start at the back, progressively move forward. But ultimately, in the near future, that (the podium) is a target.
"It doesn't matter who gets there, as long as it's Cadillac."
TEST RUN IN 2023 FERRARI
Backed by General Motors, the U.S.-owned team are well-funded and staffed, recruiting several familiar names from other established teams and with more than 400 people on board already and a target of about 600.
Preparations are on schedule and Perez will drive a 2023 Ferrari at Imola this month to shake off some cobwebs and give the team a chance to gel, even if many of the faces are already familiar.
"I'm curious, you know, to find out how many laps my neck will do before it gets destroyed," said the Mexican, already flexing his muscles on the video call.
"But it's great, you know. It's a great test and a great way to finish the year before getting back in the car next year."
The 2026 Cadillac will have a Ferrari engine, but has yet to be built with testing scheduled for the end of January in Barcelona.
Instead, Perez will get behind the wheel of one of Ferrari's red cars for the first time since he was in the Italian team's young driver academy and raced for Sauber in 2011.
"It's basically just a time for us to be able to get together with the engineers, mechanics, start working all together, you know, start talking the same language," he explained.
Perez said he was already enjoying the atmosphere and excited to be part of the first all-new team on the grid since Haas a decade ago.
"Normally the new teams that have come in the past, they've always been struggling financially," he said. "And this is a team that is coming for real and it's coming to do things in the best way and to win.
"Cadillac are here for big things and it doesn't really matter for me where we start, it's how quickly we are able to develop and how quickly we are able to move forward. How the team is working weekend after weekend."
Perez said when he was announced as a Cadillac driver in August that he had nothing to prove and just wanted to enjoy racing again.
His legion of fans are excited already, plenty of Cadillac shirts and flags were evident at the races in Texas and Mexico City last month.
"Yeah, they've got more kit than we have at the moment," joked the Mexican.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Ken Ferris)
