Speaking on the “F1 Explains” podcast, he said, “If I were Cadillac, I would look to experienced drivers… who help the team to get going.”

Why Pérez Could Thrive

Sergio Pérez lost his Red Bull seat after a difficult 2024 but, according to Steiner, would flourish with fewer political pressures.

“Maybe put him on a one-year contract,” Steiner suggested.

“It’s a lot better than having old rookies in there.

“That’s an opportunity for Checo.”

Bottas’ Value To A New Project

Valtteri Bottas, now a Mercedes reserve, brings extensive technical feedback and leadership from previous stints at Williams and Sauber.

Steiner argued that Bottas’ calm approach would accelerate development cycles inside a start-up team.

Cadillac’s Road To The Grid

Backed by General Motors, Cadillac was confirmed in March as F1’s eleventh entrant and plans to base operations in the United States under team principal Graeme Lowdon.

Board member Mario Andretti has hinted at pairing an experienced racer with a young American talent, but Steiner believes two veterans would fast-track results.

With 2026 engine and chassis regulations looming, Cadillac must finalise drivers by late 2025 to integrate them into simulator and aero programmes.

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The 25-year-old attended Miami’s launch of Cadillac’s livery, then watched social media link his name to one of two vacant seats.

O’Ward Admits He Fanned the Flames

Cornered by paddock photographer Kym Illman, the smiling Mexican owned up to trolling the rumour mill:

“Everyone kept saying Cadillac! You and Checo,” O’Ward told the media.

“And I was like, you know what, I’m going to add some logs to the fire, and I’m going to poke them.”

He added with disarming honesty: “That was just me having fun with it, there’s been no contact at all. No contact.”

Why a Mexican F1 Team Would Matter

Despite denying talks, O’Ward warmed to the prospect of an all-Mexican lineup under General Motors:

“I do think it would be really cool to have a full on Mexican team, two full time Mexican drivers in a Formula 1 team that would be historic for the country.

“I mean the country would fall. But you never know if it becomes true.”

The emotional appeal underscores Mexico’s swelling motorsport audience, already galvanized by Perez’s success and the carnival atmosphere at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez each October.

Andretti’s Options Still Wide Open

Mario Andretti confirmed earlier this year that Cadillac holds interest in Perez, but insiders suggest as many as three other candidates—including reserve driver Mick Schumacher—remain on the shortlist.

With FIA approval still pending for the outfit’s 2026 debut, driver negotiations are unofficial and fluid. O’Ward’s denial narrows the field but also highlights the team’s marketing challenge: securing talent that resonates in North American and Latin American markets while delivering immediate on-track credibility.

IndyCar Focus for Now

O’Ward sits third in the IndyCar standings and remains McLaren’s top U.S. asset, especially with its F1 arm locked into the Oscar Piastri/Lando Norris pairing.

READ: Charles Leclerc issues presidential decrees

The Mexican’s immediate target is a maiden series title, and Zak Brown has repeatedly stressed that any F1 crossover must align with both commercial goals and competitive readiness—conditions unlikely to materialize before 2027 at the earliest.

Verdict

For now, O’Ward’s Cadillac prospects remain a playful rumor he helped create. Yet his candid comments—and the sheer excitement of a Mexican-branded team—ensure the story won’t die soon.

Whether he eventually swaps IndyCar ovals for F1’s global stage may depend less on public buzz and more on Andretti’s ability to clear regulatory hurdles and assemble a driver line-up that blends star power with experience.

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The Mexican won two of the opening four races and was labelled as Max Verstappen’s only title rival; however, things quickly spiralled out of control for Perez starting at the Monaco Grand Prix.

A crash in Q1 at the Circuit de Monaco was the start of a long run of disappointing results, which saw his small title challenge become non-existent.

Perez did manage to hold on to second in the Drivers’ Championship, to complete a historic 1-2 for Red Bull.

READ: Carlos Sainz’s father makes massive Audi admission that will worry Ferrari

He still dreams of becoming a Formula 1 World Champion and has recognised what he must do to achieve his career goal.

The 34-year-old wants to be able to “evolve and improve” every weekend, rather than be strong at some venues but then weak at others.

Perez basically just wants to “build momentum”, something which Verstappen does with ease.

The three-time World Champion has become a relentless winner, with him having a tendency to build in stature as the season develops.

This is effectively what Perez wants to start doing, although it should be noted that some of his poor performances were as a result of his own errors rather than struggles with the RB19.

“I want to be able to achieve regularity, to build momentum,” Perez told Auto Hebdo. “I think what we missed this year is progression. We started the year very high, tied with Max, but we were not able to progress throughout the season. We have sometimes even regressed.

“So, I think that will be my main priority – to be able to progress throughout the season, whatever my starting point. It is important that, weekend after weekend, we continue to evolve and improve.”

READ: Red Bull dealt severe blow as McLaren reveal shocking Lando Norris transfer fee

Whether Perez has the ability to match Verstappen consistently remains to be seen or whether he can deal with the pressure of being alongside him for an entire campaign.

Ahead of the 2024 season, there is already a huge amount of pressure on Checo, given that he is currently without a contract for 2025.

Should he want to be offered an extension by Red Bull, he must ensure that he doesn’t make as many mistakes as he did in 2023.

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Perez, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon are all without a contract as things stand for 2025, with this summer’s silly season set to be the silliest of them all.

Sticking with Checo, the Mexican driver has spent the last three seasons with Red Bull, after replacing Alex Albon who has since rejuvenated his F1 career.

Whilst the 33-year-old has been an excellent second driver for the Milton Keynes-based side, his inconsistent performances make him a liability, should Red Bull face fierce competition this year.

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Because of how often he’s significantly slower than Verstappen, the general expectation is that he won’t be given a new deal at the conclusion of the upcoming campaign.

Most rumours suggest that ex-Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo will complete a famous return to the Austrians, the side he left for Renault at the end of 2018.

Renault have, of course, since rebranded as Alpine and are a potential option for Perez for next year.

As mentioned, the Enstone-based side do currently have two available seats for 2025 and are realistically the most competitive option on the grid for Perez.

Mercedes and McLaren both have their drivers under contract until at least the end of 2025, whilst Oscar Piastri is tied to the Woking-based outfit until the end of 2026.

Ferrari do technically have two seats available for next year, although it’s widely expected that Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz will be retained.

The same can be said for Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonso rumoured to be keen on extending his stint with the British manufacturer beyond this year.

As for Lance Stroll’s seat, it’ll presumably be unavailable as long as his father continues to own the Silverstone-based team.

READ: Max Verstappen beating Red Bull in a McLaren ‘impossible’

So, would Alpine be a good home for Perez?

Anderson isn’t convinced the French side should be looking to hire the Mexican driver’s services, because of the toll racing for Red Bull has had on him.

“I honestly think [Sergio] Perez is too damaged by his experience at Red Bull to be considered the right option there,” Anderson said on The Race F1 Podcast, as reported by F1 Oversteer.

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Perez’s Red Bull contract is set to expire at the end of this year, with the general expectation being that it won’t be extended.

Most expect Red Bull to bring Daniel Ricciardo back into the team for at least the 2025 season if he does well for AlphaTauri this year, and then potentially poach Lando Norris for 2026 when the new power unit regulations are introduced.

In other words, Perez is likely going to need to look elsewhere if he wants to continue racing in F1.

Whilst there are several contracts set to expire across the grid at the end of the upcoming season, none are at a team which can take the fight to Red Bull or compete at a similar level to them.

Perez will need to accept a slower package if he wants to remain in F1 or perhaps move to a leading seat in another series.

The latter has been reported over the weekend, with Formula E co-founder Alberto Longo being keen on the Mexican driver joining the all-electric series.

There are several very strong seats available for 2025 as things stand and he’d still have a home race at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Longo, reportedly, talks “constantly” to Perez about potentially moving to Formula E, with the sport’s co-founder joking that Perez needs to join a “real competition”.

Perez is more than “welcome” to join Formula E, as Longo has stressed that the “doors will be open” to him.

“I talk constantly with Checo and I hope he makes a jump to real competition (laughs). Formula E is his home, the doors will be open and he is welcome,” Longo told AS media, as reported by Fox Sports.

Whether Perez is ready to say goodbye to F1 remains to be seen; however, Formula E racing on mainly street circuits could excite him.

Perez has proven to be a street-track master over recent years, with all of his Red Bull wins having come at street circuits.

Formula E could, therefore, suit him very well.

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The Dutchman was consistently able to extract more performance from the RB19 on his way to his third consecutive Drivers’ Championship, leading to suggestions that the car was designed for him, rather than Perez.

Of Red Bull’s 21 wins in 2023, a staggering 19 of them were claimed by Verstappen, in what was the most dominant season in the history of F1 by a driver.

Perez ended last year a ridiculous 290 points behind the 26-year-old, which was still enough for second in the Drivers’ Championship.

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According to the Mexican’s father, finishing second is what “he was hired for” as Red Bull build their cars to suit Verstappen’s driving style.

“The car is set for Max because he drives with all the grip at the front and Checo has done it all the time with the grip at the back,” Perez’s father said last year, as per The Express. “The position Checo is in is the one he was hired for, second place.

“There is only one champion and you have to understand that. He has to work for it and respect it. All this was built for Max to be a champion and you have to understand and respect it. If he moved to another team he could be fourth or sixth.”

Verstappen has always denied claims of Red Bull designing the car specifically for him, with the Dutch driver insisting that he is simply able to “adapt to certain situations”.

The 54-time race winner has insisted that the Milton Keynes-based side just introduce upgrades to make the car faster in general, without considering a specific driving style.

“When people ask you: ‘What is your driving style?’, I can’t tell you because it’s about being able to adapt to certain situations or what the car likes as well,” Verstappen told Motorsport.com.

“What do I want? I want more grip. There’s a lot of things that you want, some things are not realistic. So, I just adapt to the car that I get given. Throughout the year, the team just applies upgrades to the car to make it faster. Not to try and follow a certain balance direction or whatever.

READ: Christian Horner expecting rivals to copy them

“It’s just overall load, overall grip, that you gain from upgrades. I’m quite happy with the behaviour of the car, but if the car is a little bit more understeery I have to adapt my driving to that. Or if it’s more oversteery it’s the same way.”

Interestingly, Perez was able to perform at a similar level to Verstappen in the opening rounds of last season, before he became significantly slower than his teammate when Red Bull started to upgrade the car.

Some believe the upgrades were designed to increase Verstappen’s confidence in the car but even Perez himself has informed the media that at no point did Red Bull introduce a part specifically for the reigning World Champion.

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The Red Bull driver announced in July 2022 that he’d be entering a team into the all-electric series, known as Team Mexico.

For the sport’s inaugural season, Perez’s team has signed ex-HRT Formula 1 test driver Dani Clos and ex-W Series driver Vicky Piria.

They’ll be up against some stiff competition, as tennis legend Rafael Nadal and NFL all-time great Tom Brady have also both entered their own sides.

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How often Perez will be able to watch his team compete in-person is currently unknown, considering that the 2024 F1 World Championship gets underway at the end of February with the Bahrain Grand Prix.

The 2024 F1 season will be the longest in the sport’s history, as it consists of 24 races.

As for E1, the new series is targeting to raise awareness over climate change, as well as promote clean mobility and restore ecosystems.

It’s a great project for Perez to have alongside his F1 duties, especially as he reaches the latter stages of his career at the pinnacle of motorsport.

During the 2023 season, there was plenty of speculation that he wouldn’t keep his seat at Red Bull next year; however, he will enter 2024 still as a Red Bull driver.

Next year is the last on the 33-year-old’s current contract, with it expected that he won’t be offered an extension for 2025 or beyond.

It largely depends on how well he performs, as he can’t afford another huge slump like he did this year.

READ: Lewis Hamilton replacement already picked by Mercedes

If Perez isn’t offered a new contract by the Milton Keynes-based outfit, then he’ll either have to accept a move to a weaker team potentially in the midfield or even retire from F1.

Should he do the latter, then he’ll at least have E1 to focus on, meaning that he’ll have something to do regardless of what Red Bull decide to do with him at the end of next season.

Perez is targeting to take the fight to Max Verstappen in 2024, although battling the Dutchman is easier said than done.

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The Red Bull driver made a remarkable start to this year and won two of the opening four races, something which saw him labelled as Max Verstappen’s only title rival.

In the opening four races, Perez consistently took the fight to his teammate, before his season dramatically turned for the worse at the Monaco Grand Prix.

Perez crashed in the opening minutes of Q1 at the Circuit de Monaco, leaving him to start from the back of the grid.

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Concerningly, this was already the second time in 2023 that he’d been eliminated in Q1, as he also crashed out of qualifying at the Australian Grand Prix a few rounds prior.

Unsurprisingly, Perez failed to make any significant progress, with it having kick-started his downward spiral.

He then went on a miserable run of failing to progress to Q3, whilst he never finished on the top step of the podium again.

As a result, his poor form allowed Lewis Hamilton to contest for second in the Drivers’ Championship, although some positive results towards the end of the season ensured that Checo claimed P2.

The Japanese Grand Prix was perhaps the lowest point of his year, though, as he retired from the event twice.

He initially retired after hitting Kevin Magnussen but was put back into the race by Red Bull so that he could serve two five-second time penalties.

Once he served them, he retired from the race once again.

His driver errors and lack of pace compared to Verstappen resulted in significant speculation about his future, with team principal Christian Horner having ended up getting involved by stressing that his 2024 contract will be respected.

Perez rescuing second in the standings will have resulted in a sigh of relief from him and Red Bull, as he admits it was “a hard year”.

“We had, I don’t know, two or three races where we lost control and things got out of our hand and others where things began to complicate more for us,” Perez admitted to FOX Sports Mexico.

“Looking at it from the outside, it was a hard year. At times we started really well, and at the start of the year we had dreams of fighting for the world championship after being very competitive in those first races.”

Whilst he admits 2023 was hugely challenging, the 33-year-old believes he was always able to “come back”, ensuring that his campaign wasn’t a “total failure”.

READ: ‘Complete bulls**t’: Sebastian Vettel lashes out

“I think that recovering from those difficult moments is what defines our season, though, because there were moments where it would have been easy for all this to beat us and it could have been a total failure – but it was not like that, we were able to come back, we always came back and that is what was salvageable about this year,” said Perez.

“In the end we were able to conclude by finishing with what was the best season ever for Red Bull, but without a doubt I leave reflecting on the big lessons we have from this year.

“Taking that into next year, I think that strengthens the whole environment of my team to be much more solid in 2024.”

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As has become tradition, the drivers – except Lewis Hamilton – took part in secret Santa, with Perez having been selected to give a present to the driver after his seat.

Formula 1 filmed the drivers opening their presents during the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which took place at the end of November.

However, Perez’s gift to Ricciardo was delivered late, leaving him unhappy.

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“It came late,” Ricciardo jokingly complained.

“So I’ve got a bone to pick with whoever selected it.”

Once Ricciardo unwrapped the present, he was no longer unhappy, as Checo had gifted him a limited-edition bottle of his own tequila brand.

It turns out Ricciardo is a big tequila fan, meaning the present went down very well.

“Thank you Checo,” Ricciardo said. “I do like tequila very much.”

Given that Ricciardo wants Perez’s seat in 2025, it’s fairly comical that it was the Red Bull driver who was chosen to give a present to the eight-time race winner.

Ricciardo has openly admitted that returning to Red Bull would be the perfect way to end his F1 career, with team principal Christian Horner being more than aware of the 34-year-old’s intentions.

Most expect Ricciardo to return to Red Bull in 2025, if he performs well for AlphaTauri next season.

Perez’s contract with the Milton Keynes-based squad expires at the end of 2024 and is so far no expected to be extended.

Some ponder whether Red Bull are planning on giving Ricciardo a one-year deal for 2025, leaving a seat available for 2026 potentially for Lando Norris.

Norris has been linked to Red Bull for years now and is viewed as a driver who could match Max Verstappen.

READ: Lewis Hamilton denied Mercedes bonus

Whilst Ricciardo briefly matched Verstappen when they were team-mates from the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix to the end of 2018, he struggled to do it consistently.

The same can be said for Perez, who particularly in 2023 was often considerably slower than the three-time World Champion.

Perez being selected to be Ricciardo’s secret Santa is a sign that there is no tension between them, at least for now.

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Perez was comfortably beaten by Verstappen in 2023, with the Mexican having claimed just two race wins to the Dutchman’s 19.

Despite having equal-machinery as the three-time World Champion, Perez ended the season a distant 290 points behind.

He has come under significant criticism this year for being so much slower than Verstappen, especially after he started 2023 so strongly.

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Perez matched Verstappen in the first four rounds, where they both won two races.

Verstappen has been clear ever since, leading to claims by Perez’s entourage that Red Bull designed the RB19 to suit the Dutch driver, not Checo.

Suggestions of the Austrians designing the car for Verstappen have actually been quashed by Checo and Red Bull’s simulator driver Jake Dennis, who have stressed that it’s not the case at all.

Putting the machinery to the side, Verstappen and Perez do seem to have gotten on better in 2023 than they did in 2022, with the duo having clashed at the Brazilian Grand Prix that year.

At the 2022 Brazilian GP, Verstappen refused to follow team orders and let Perez past, a situation which, thankfully, hasn’t been repeated.

Verstappen actually tried to help Perez finish second in the closing laps of the 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix, only for the 33-year-old to be outdone by a smart pass by Charles Leclerc.

Despite this, Perez is pleased with how himself and the Dutch driver are working together, with Checo noting that he has access to the “best” data on the grid.

“I think it’s been a good year, I think our relationship is really good,” Perez told reporters, as per Total-Motorsport.com. “I think when we are in all those briefings through so many races, I think it’s been, it’s been good.

READ: Sergio Perez warns F1 bosses as discontent grows

“And we will be pushing at times in different directions, but at the same time, we’ve been strongly asking for the same stuff so that also has been positive for the team.

“Well, I think it’s always been good, this is our third season together, so it’s been good. There are things that you learn from him, I think it’s obviously I have the best reference out there because he’s the one who was so competitive.

“So I think there’s no harm in looking at what he’s doing, how he’s doing it, and try to learn and improve, see what works for you that he’s doing differently to you. I’ve always had a very open approach, and I think it’s something that works well.”

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