F1 | Early reliability concerns for Ferrari-powered cars at the Australian GP. Ferrari-powered Cadillac faced reliability issues.

The opening practice sessions of the 2026 Australian Grand Prix highlighted reliability challenges for several teams, including a Ferrari-powered entry. Across the night and morning in Italy, the first free practice sessions of the season took place in Australia, with several teams encountering “teething problems” with their new cars. Cadillac, powered by Ferrari, also faced multiple issues during these initial sessions. Sergio Perez, returning after a year away from Red Bull, spoke to official F1 media about what happened.

The debut of Cadillac

In FP1 at the Australian GP, Sergio Perez finished in twentieth position, while Valtteri Bottas ended up seventeenth. In FP2, however, the Mexican driver was forced to stay in the pits for most of the session. Once on track, additional problems forced him to stop again, even triggering a Virtual Safety Car. At the end of the session, Perez provided his assessment of the season debut: “Unfortunately, we had a lot of problems. We weren’t able to do the long run, which was important. That was the main issue today: not accumulating enough kilometers. We hope that tomorrow everything will go smoother – hopefully we can try the tires and see what we have available.”

For its F1 debut, Cadillac decided to use a Ferrari engine until its own power unit is ready. According to Sergio Perez, the issues that forced him to stop during FP2 in Australia could be related to the engine: “I don’t know exactly what happened in the end – it seems to be a problem with the engine, so we hope it doesn’t create too much difficulty for tomorrow and that we can have a clean FP3, because we really need to collect data for the race.”

Cadillac’s difficult Friday in Melbourne shows the immense challenge facing new entries in the complex 2026 era. With Sergio Perez suspecting engine-related failures, the team must now rely on their partnership with Ferrari to quickly diagnose and resolve these reliability threats before they compromise their first-ever qualifying session on the streets of Albert Park.