The first Cadillac F1 home race in Miami was always going to be a marketing event before it was a results event. Both cars finished. Both qualified at the back. Both stayed away from trouble. And the most telling line of the weekend was the one Cadillac team principal Graeme Lowdon used to describe his own team's mood.
"That we are disappointed shows just how far we have come in just four races," Lowdon said.
Valtteri Bottas qualified 20th in 1:31.629, with Sergio Perez 21st in 1:31.967 — both more than two seconds adrift of Antonelli's pole-winning Mercedes. Both finished outside the points on Sunday. The headline number for Cadillac is the one that does not show on the timing sheet: a fourth straight race in which both cars completed the distance, with no DNS or DNF in either Bottas's or Perez's run since the team's Albert Park debut.
Lowdon framed the weekend as a step that should have been a bigger one.
"Overall this weekend has been a step forward in performance, as we've been able to race other teams and be properly in the mix on race pace," he said. "We started the Sprint strongly and we were hoping to be further up in Qualifying, but weren't able to capitalize fully on the inherent progress."
The Miami event itself was packaged as much for Cadillac's US storytelling as for the championship. Stars-and-stripes graphics on the front wing endplates, US-flag merchandise in the grandstands, and a paddock used as a soft-launch for the brand's wider American racing strategy. Lowdon was clear in the build-up that the home-race energy was working.
"It's great to feel the support, and I feel as if we're bringing something different to Formula One," he told Reuters. "It seems to resonate with the fans."
The team principal was also clear-eyed about how far Cadillac still has to come in the operational sense.
"We're racing against teams that have done literally thousands of grand prixs," Lowdon said. "If there is a thing such as team muscle memory how you operate, that's something it takes time to build."
In the post-race assessment, Lowdon pointed to data and refinement as the next phase.
"We also know there are areas we need to refine and improve so there is more to come from us," he said. "We've increased the amount of data that we have."
The pace gap to the established midfield is still the unavoidable headline. Cadillac sat behind Audi and well behind the Banbury-supported Audi-Sauber transition project on race pace, and remains last in the constructors' standings four races into the season. But the trajectory — Australia, China, Japan and now Miami without a single non-finish — is one of the most quietly impressive operational stories on the grid.
For the drivers, Miami was a different kind of weekend. Perez treated it as the closest thing he has to a second home race after his Mexican Grand Prix, and used the Cadillac platform as another step in the rebuild he and the team signed up for after his Red Bull exit. Bottas, racing in F1 colours for the fourth team of his career after Williams, Mercedes and Sauber, has been the more consistent qualifier of the two.
The next race is Canada, where Cadillac is expected to bring its first significant aerodynamic upgrade of the year. Until then, Lowdon's parting line is the one to hold on to.
"That we are disappointed shows just how far we have come in just four races."
