Sergio Perez brands Cadillac unreliability "unacceptable" after "worst weekend" at F1 Austrian GP

Sergio Perez has called the Austrian Grand Prix the “worst weekend” of his 2026 Formula 1 season so far and branded the unreliability issues suffered by Cadillac as “unacceptable.”

Both Perez and his team mate Valtteri Bottas were out of the race within four laps after suffering with similar brake overheating issues.

The problem had not been apparent in practice, but the high race day temperatures and running in traffic – if only for a brief time – tipped the brakes over the edge.

The problem was not related to the issues seen three weeks ago in Monaco and which led to the retirement of Bottas in that race.

The Austrian double DNF came in the wake of a string of issues for the Silverstone team, including a suspension failure for Perez in Montreal and a brake pedal issue for Bottas in practice in Barcelona.

Both drivers also lost track time with various problems during practice in Austria, which somewhat masked the performance gains that came with a major aero upgrade package.

“It's a bit unfortunate what happened today,” said Perez when asked by Crash.net about his early retirement. 

“I think we underestimated the effect of traffic. We've been having issues all weekend – I think it's been the worst weekend. It feels like we took four or five steps backwards.

“So there needs to be a massive process, thinking on how we're doing things, especially when it comes to upgrades, because today what happened was totally unacceptable and very unfortunate as well for the team. I'm sure that we will be able to sort it out for coming races.”

Perez confirmed that the brakes hadn’t been flagged as a potential problem in practice: “No, not really. I think it was just a traffic thing that overexaggerated things.”

Perez admitted that the recent run of problems has been difficult to accept.

“Of course it is frustrating,” he said. “But the most frustrating thing is not to see progress. I think we always expected these things to occur to a new team, obviously, but I think the frustration comes from the lack of progress. 

“So I'm sure that this upgrade will help us to understand a lot of those efficiencies, and I do expect a massive step forward in reliability going to Silverstone.”

Meanwhile Bottas confirmed that the issue had come as a surprise in the race.

"No warning,” he said when asked about it by Crash.net. “Everything was under control in practice. We did more than 10 laps in a row, that's normally more than enough to get the peak temperature at the beginning of the race. 

“But I think today with the slight increase in temperature, and then with the traffic effect, things just caught on fire, clearly, and already lap 2. So it's a big issue. Obviously, we've got to find a fix for it.

Regarding the ongoing problems with the car he said: “It's now the third DNF for me in a row, so if we don't finish the races, then we can't really learn much out of the car and the package either. 

“So the priority is now pretty clear in Silverstone, we have to have to finish the race. That's when we can learn. We had new bits in terms of brake cooling for this weekend, but clearly not enough. So just got to keep working on it.”

Bottas also agreed with Perez’s assessment of the Austrian weekend

“I think for us that was probably the most disappointing race this season,” he said. “Both cars out only a few laps in. The only thing we can do is work hard as a team, you know, that's going to be the only solution and way to move forward.”