Photo: Liauzh, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0)
Ask a team principal whether his drivers are signed for next year and a confident answer costs him nothing. Marcin Budkowski, asked in Austin whether Sergio Pérez and Valtteri Bottas both hold 2027 contracts, said instead that a press conference was the last place he would discuss driver contracts. That is a rule of conduct, not a denial, and it is worth reading closely.
Budkowski was one of three team figures on the Friday panel at the Circuit of the Americas, alongside Adrian Newey of Aston Martin and Allan McNish of Audi. Everything below comes from the official FIA transcript of that session.
What he did say
On Pérez, Budkowski rejected the suggestion that the veteran is winding down. He said Pérez neither behaves nor drives like someone close to retirement, called him hungry and motivated, and said he pushes the team hard behind the scenes, including by texting members of it regularly. He summed up his two drivers with a temperature joke: one runs hotter, the other cooler, and both push the team in their own ways.
On Bottas, the update was technical rather than personal. The team was doing exploratory set-up work on his car, he said, not aimed squarely at that race but meant to build knowledge about the options.
What he carefully did not say
On contracts, Budkowski said any announcement would come in an official team release when the time is right. On Esteban Ocon, who was raised as a possible reserve option, he neither confirmed nor ruled out any contact, joking that his communications department would not forgive him for naming names. And on the wider market, he said that pretty much every driver who is out of contract has been in touch, as you would expect.
None of that confirms a change. A principal with both drivers locked in could say so in one sentence, but plenty of teams decline on principle until a release is ready, so silence proves nothing either way. What it does tell you is that Cadillac is keeping options open in public while praising a driver in the same breath, a standard way to avoid committing to either path before the paperwork is finished.
Why the reserve question matters
The Ocon question is a sign of how the market has moved. Reserve roles are now a bargaining chip and a safety net at once, a theme we explored in our piece on McLaren keeping Fornaroli on F1 standby. A team with a young operation has an obvious use for an experienced driver who can support development work, whether or not he races.
Newey, seated on the same panel, had his own Austin storyline at Aston Martin, which we covered in our report on Stroll starting from the pit lane. Between now and the end of the season, the clearest signal on Cadillac’s 2027 line-up will be the team’s own release, not a paddock interview.
Lead image: Photo: Liauzh, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).
About the Author
