Jacques Villeneuve on Cadillac F1 drivers: "Experience doesn't mean you're quick or great"

Jacques Villeneuve says Cadillac's experienced 2026 line-up will pay off if Valtteri Bottas rediscovers his Mercedes-era form

Jacques Villeneuve has delivered his verdict on Cadillac's signing of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez.

Cadillac announced its debut driver line-up this week as it prepares to join the Formula 1 grid in 2026 as the championship's 11th team. The American team opted for experience with Bottas and Perez.

Bottas entered his F1 debut in 2013 with Williams after a three-year stint as the Grove outfit's test and reserve driver. He remained with the team until the end of 2016 before moving to Mercedes for 2017 for five years, spending five years racing alongside seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton. He parted ways with Mercedes at the end of 2021 to take a seat at Alfa Romeo/Sauber until the end of the 2024 season.

2025 saw Bottas return to Mercedes as a reserve driver. Over his extensive career in the championship, the Finnish driver has accumulated 10 grand prix wins, 67 podium finishes, and 20 pole positions.

Similarly, Perez has secured six grand prix wins, 39 podium finishes, and three pole positions over a 14-year stint in a full-time seat in F1. During this time, he raced for Sauber, McLaren, Force India/Racing Point and Red Bull, where he drove alongside four-time champion Max Verstappen.

While Villeneuve acknowledged that experience is important for the new team, he argued that if Cadillac gets "the Bottas of Mercedes" that would be positive, but claimed he "lost interest" during his time with Sauber.

"Experience is important when you're a new team, but there's different kinds of experiences — good experience, bad experience," Villeneuve explained to Sky Sports F1 at Zandvoort.

Valtteri Bottas, Mercedes

Photo by: Simon Galloway / LAT Images via Getty Images

"Experience doesn't mean you're quick or great. Bottas won against Lewis, was very active in moving the Mercedes car forward. It was hard at Sauber. I think he just lost interest. So if you take the Bottas of Mercedes, great, and he has image. Perez comes with cash as well."

Former driver and chairman of the Grand Prix Drivers' Association, Alexander Wurz, has also spoken out on the driver choice.

"I’m not the team principal now, but basically you have to assume they didn’t buy the oldest drivers, they bought the most experienced ones," he said to ORF. "And that’s so important, also because the experience comes from different teams.

"From Red Bull, of course, with Checo Perez, and the other one comes from Sauber and naturally has a Mercedes background. So that’s already a lot of experience, and also drivers who don’t need to prove themselves but can work together with the team to create a new team culture and a new team structure.

"At the beginning, having an experienced driver pairing is certainly a good thing, and at some point, maybe after two or three years, when the performance starts to come, then mixing things up with a younger driver or with a Formula 1 driver who’s only been around two or three years would definitely make sense.

"But we’re still far away from that. As Valtteri said in our interview, first they need to learn to walk – which means simply being there, getting out on track on time, finishing the first races – and only then can you start thinking about what performance brings. And those are tasks Bottas and Perez will handle well."