Valtteri Bottas' unusual Miami F1 penalty explained

Valtteri Bottas' unusual penalty at the Miami Grand Prix is the latest symptom of some of the teething issues F1's newest team is dealing with, but Cadillac is buoyed by the results of its first in-season upgrades.

Cadillac brought an ambitious set of updates to its home race in Miami after having started its F1 adventure with a relatively basic launch car. Those upgrades, centred around an improved front wing and a reprofiled floor, allowed it to take a bite out of its deficit to the rest of F1 2026's packed midfield and race Aston Martin on pace.

But some quality inconsistencies with the new parts, and an unusual drive-through penalty for Bottas, showed Cadillac still has a number of teething issues to get on top of as F1's newest entrant.

Sergio Perez and Bottas finished 17th and 20th respectively in Saturday's 19-lap sprint, with Perez splitting the Astons in the grand prix in 16th. Finishing 18th and last of the classified runners, Bottas lost ground with a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane, which he explained was the result of an issue with the tactility of the buttons. Cadillac doesn't produce its own steering wheel and is awaiting an updated product from its supplier.

"I pressed the pit limiter button, but apparently not hard enough," he reported. "We're still lacking a bit of feedback on some of the buttons, so another error we're still working on. It's been a known issue, we just haven't got the new buttons yet. Hopefully in the next race. But yeah, it's one of the things that happens when you start as a new team."

Valtteri Bottas, Cadillac Racing

Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images

And while Bottas said "the upgrades worked", he feels Cadillac is still struggling with the production quality of some of its parts, which has added inconsistencies. "I think we're still struggling a bit with the quality of certain parts," the Finn said. "Not every part is the same that we put in the car, so there's a bit of a lack of consistency in there, but overall, it's getting better."

Speaking exclusively to Motorsport, team principal Graeme Lowdon said the team's inconsistencies are a known issue that is a product of just how new the team is to F1 as it gets all its processes up to the required standard. Williams' delay getting its car ready for pre-season testing shows it's a fine balance that even established teams can get wrong.

"Everything is so new that it is very, very difficult to get all of the processes up to the level that we want them to," Lowdon said. "We're not there yet, but we will get there. I want to thank the drivers because they've got that maturity to understand that the way we've delivered certain things on the car will constantly improve.

"And they've got that maturity and experience to know that they can really benefit from encouraging everybody in the team to go at the right pace. If you push too hard, it's negative, and both Valtteri and Checo push at exactly the right level."

Sergio Perez, Cadillac Racing

Photo by: Sona Maleterova / Getty Images

But Lowdon is under no illusion about Cadillac needing a lot more to be competitive. And while the team is confident it can unlock much more performance from its Miami package in Canada and beyond, further upgrades are in the works.

"We've made a really big step forward here in a number of areas," Lowdon said. "The upgrades have worked how we wanted them to work. We've got an almost constant stream of things in the pipeline. But it's good when an upgrade works the way you think it is going to work, because that gives us confidence that the next ones will equally deliver as well. We made some steps forward [with] operation; these pitstops are very slick.

"We've got a fairly healthy stream of upgrades, primarily aero. There's still some weight-saving, but even the weight-saving is designed primarily to allow us to use the weight on the car strategically. You have to constantly develop in Formula 1, and we're no different from any other team from that point of view."