Sergio Perez says that Cadillac's recent stall in development has rendered the past few Formula 1 races "a disappointment", but believes that the team can find another second's worth of development in 2026.
In the first part of the season, Cadillac developed its car significantly to move clear of the struggling Aston Martin, consistently beating the Silverstone team to avoid the wooden spoon and the back row of the grid.
However, this progress has stalled of late; Aston Martin's own developments (including its aero upgrades in Hungary and the Netherlands, plus Honda's quest for power) have yielded a significant increase in lap time, leaving Cadillac behind.
Perez feels that Cadillac is capable of more. Speaking on Formula 1's Beyond the Grid podcast, he reckoned that a new team should be finding constant improvement - but recent form has ultimately flatlined.
"On everything, I think the last few races have been a disappointment. There's a lot of disappointment because we haven't been developing. We haven't been improving," Perez said.
"Us being a new team, this is what we should be doing, like every time. So I felt like there was a bit of a stalling in the last few races.
"And that's why we had to review on things, how we were doing everything. Obviously, being a new team, there's a lot of things that we are constantly learning."
Perez put that in lap time terms, suggesting that the team is missing a second's worth of lap time that it had expected to find over the opening half of the year.
That said, he feels that Cadillac is "not that far" from the established teams, and finding that much time would potentially change the game for the team and allow it to put the likes of Williams, Haas and Aston Martin under pressure.
"I don't think we have improved as much as we hoped for," Perez added. "[We have found] I don't know, a second? But probably we were looking for two seconds.
"The most important is we understand and we look at our processes, why it hasn't come, that second? Why we haven't improved in all those different areas?
"Because it's not only one thing, being a new team, there's a lot of things that are in there. And I can see them, you know. If we improve our load, our ride, a lot of things, all of a sudden, we are not that far.
"We are at the back, but half a second, one second will change our life completely at this stage, you know? And I feel like for us being a new team, it's in there. It's possible."
