Esteban Ocon is trying his best to join Cadillac for the 2027 F1 season after losing his seat with Haas to Rafael Camara, but Sergio Perez is just one of the hurdles he faces.

On paper, Cadillac do not have a vacancy for next year available for Ocon to inherit, as Perez and Valtteri Bottas both have contracts with the American F1 team. But questions over their respective futures are starting to grow as Cadillac eye a stronger second season on the grid.

Cadillac handed Perez and Bottas multi-year deals ahead of the team’s debut in 2026, as the experience they brought was a big help in establishing their programme. Now, however, it is being said that Cadillac could replace Perez and Bottas, which may offer Ocon a lifeline in F1.

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Ocon faces falling off the Formula 1 grid after Haas signed Ferrari junior Camara for 2027, as the other American squad on the grid welcomes a second Scuderia-backed driver to partner Oliver Bearman. So, Ocon is now keen to convince Cadillac to replace either Bottas or Perez.

That is according to Auto Action, which notes that Ocon is ‘trying hard’ to convince Cadillac that he would be a better fit for their future prospects than especially Bottas. But right now, Cadillac are offering ‘no signs’ that they will drop Bottas as they know his struggles so far in 2026 are because his chassis has had issues since the start of the season they cannot fix.

Bottas has often fought with one arm tied behind his back due to Cadillac’s reliance on using external suppliers to create ‘almost all’ of the parts to build the MAC26. When the Finn’s car has worked properly, he has not just matched Perez but has shown he can beat the Mexican.

So, after Cadillac held talks with Yuki Tsunoda about a 2027 F1 seat, the Japanese driver has turned his attention to finding a home in the IndyCar Series. And Ocon might also be left in the cold as, on top of Cadillac’s awareness of Bottas’ chassis issues, Perez ‘clearly doesn’t want him as a teammate’ due to their fractious partnership at Force India in 2017 and 2018.

Ocon joined Perez at Force India in 2017, but the Frenchman and the Mexican regularly left the Silverstone-based squad (now operating as Aston Martin) pulling their hair out. All too often, Ocon and Perez came to blows, with the worst examples coming at Spa and in Baku.

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Back in 2017 at the Belgian Grand Prix, Ocon accused Perez of “trying to kill me two times”, after the latter squeezed the former towards the old pit wall. The worst of their collisions at Spa that day came while they fought over P10, with Perez unwilling to yield to Ocon despite the Frenchman having the overlap – which left the Mexican with a puncture and he retired.

Then at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix, Perez slammed Ocon for causing an “unacceptable” collision that ruined both of their races in Baku. A podium finish was on the cards for Force India that day, but their dreams were dashed when Ocon tried to capitalise on Perez being compromised from failing to overtake Sebastian Vettel for P2 just to make contact in Turn 2.

Even nine years later, the tension that remains between Perez and Ocon could now be one of the hurdles that prevents the Frenchman from joining Cadillac in 2027 and saving his F1 career. But the biggest hurdle stopping Ocon from replacing Bottas is Cadillac’s acceptance that his frequent eye-opening deficits to Perez are more because of their car than the Finn.

Ahead of Cadillac’s debut F1 United States Grand Prix at COTA this week, Perez leads Bottas in their Grand Prix results head-to-head 11-4 and qualifying head-to-head 9-8. Perez boasts a net 0.243s average qualifying advantage over Bottas after 17 rounds this season, as well.