Alex Jacques and Jolyon Palmer analyzed the American team's start and highlighted that, despite being last in the constructors' championship, they exceeded the most pessimistic predictions.
When Cadillac announced its arrival in Formula 1 for the 2026 season, the most pessimistic predictions in the paddock predicted a disaster, some spoke of differences of five, six or even seven seconds per lap compared to the leaders, three races later, the picture is very different and this was emphasized by two authoritative voices in the category's journalism.
Commentator Alex Jacques, in a season start review video, defended the work of the American team: "It sounds crazy that we're going to talk about a team that's almost as far back as Aston Martin, and then I'm going to praise them because I thought they would be miles off the back," he explained.
Jacques focused on the Japanese Grand Prix as a test: "Suzuka is a real qualifying test, a real test of the car you've built, and they weren't too far off, there were predictions in the paddock that they weren't going to add anything to Formula 1 and that couldn't be further from the truth, they've had a very good start," he pointed out.
The analyst added that the next step will be key: "If they can show good development, they're going to be part of the real race rather than us referring to them as the new Formula 1 team, as we've been doing for a while," he stated.
For his part, former driver and F1 TV presenter Jolyon Palmer admitted that he perhaps had "more ambitious expectations" than the rest, but agreed that the balance is positive: "I have to say, they're not doing badly, they're absolutely solid," he stated.
Palmer recalled that Cadillac is not an improvised team: "They've been preparing for this for a while, they have some really good technical leaders, such as Pat Symonds, Nick Chester, guys who have been in this for decades, so I didn't expect them to be completely disastrous, and they're not."
The former British driver highlighted that Cadillac is already capable of competing wheel to wheel in the corners, although the challenge now is to sustain that pace throughout an entire race: "They have to use this acceptable, promising starting point for a completely new team, and add performance to the car," he explained.
Palmer listed the pending tasks: "They need to add downforce, understand the power unit, use the skills of the technical minds they have, use the experience of the drivers, both race winners, if they can't get into that midfield fight, then I think there will be questions in the summer," he closed.
Cadillac currently sits tenth in the constructors' championship, tied on zero points with Aston Martin but unlike the British team, which is the big disappointment of the year, the Americans are meeting the minimum objective: not looking out of place in their debut year.