Cadillac switches to new Ferrari power unit before Azerbaijan GP: 'King of Baku' Pérez plays the underdog hand

Baku, this weekend. On the narrow corridor of the 6-kilometer street circuit, where walls sit only centimetres from the tyre edges, Cadillac is no longer outside the story. A few days before practice, General Motors' new F1 team confirmed the car will be fitted with a new-specification Ferrari power unit. This is not a rash decision. Team principal Marcin Budkowski stressed that everything follows the operating plan set from the start of the season and was already announced from the Spanish Grand Prix. To a man who has been reading the market for 43 years, this is not purely technical news. This is a well-packaged brand move. Cadillac enters Formula 1 as a new team buying Ferrari engines in a customer-team arrangement. General Motors stands behind them, but the scope of the investment has not been disclosed. That says something: this is a burn-money phase, accepting losses to build brand equity. In the opposite direction, the team holds a veteran asset named Sergio Pérez. The Mexican driver owns the most impressive record at Baku: two Grand Prix wins, three podiums and one sprint win. Max Verstappen also has two wins there, but Pérez is more often called 'King of Baku' due to his special form on the tight street track. Budkowski admits the flyaway races outside Europe are creating real pressure on logistics and endurance. Before talking about the engine, talk about status. Cadillac is the newest team in the cost-cap era. They buy Ferrari engines, hire an experienced driver and a team principal who worked at major organisations. Haas used a similar model when joining F1: bright early days, then stagnation due to lack of development investment. Cadillac has GM behind them, but whether a giant industrial corporation truly understands F1's operational tempo is an open question. The flyaway pressure Budkowski mentions is not just night flights; it is recruitment, logistics and physical management for the whole team. The first thing to look at squarely: the new Ferrari spec is not a secret weapon. It was already announced from the Spanish GP. In other words, the team is simply executing planned engine-cycle management, not responding to an emergency. Headlines using 'new engine' do not change the technical substance. For a customer team, the Ferrari spec is typically delivered after the works team is running reliably. That is adaptive execution, not breakthrough innovation. The 'small aerodynamic improvements' have only been tested in Free Practice, so no performance data yet validates effect. So what is Cadillac betting on? The nature of Baku itself. This is a street circuit, but unlike Monaco with its slow rhythm. Baku has long straights, heavy braking zones and mistakes punished by concrete walls. The race is famous for high attrition, frequent Safety Cars and unpredictable controversies. For a backmarker team, those factors compress performance gaps and open rare points opportunities. If there is one weekend this season where Cadillac can dream of points, it is Baku. In a championship where the gap between front-runners and backmarkers can reach three seconds per lap, Baku is an exception. Narrow roads, dust, concrete walls and Safety Cars can erase technical advantage. That is where a team like Cadillac can steal a top-ten spot. But that requires avoiding mistakes. And new teams usually make mistakes at pit stops, not from the driver. Pérez can drive well, but if a tyre change takes five seconds, all effort is wasted. Pérez is the team's tactical asset. He has won in Baku by handling chaotic situations smartly. Notably, his two DNFs there came from other drivers' crashes, not his own errors. He has the ability to read the race, keep calm under Safety Cars and attack at the right moment. This is a genuine driver-circuit affinity effect. But there is a thin line: those glorious memories were created in competitive machinery — Force India, Racing Point, Red Bull. This Cadillac is not in that category. Now let us talk about the 'new Ferrari engine'. Each driver only receives a certain number of power-unit components per season. Exceeding the limit triggers grid penalties. So engine upgrades are carefully calculated, sometimes with a team accepting a penalty at a sacrificial circuit. The question is: is Cadillac treating Baku as a penalty-friendly race? The original article does not answer. That means we only see half the technical picture. From a financial-flow perspective, this deal is not about the engine. It is about the story. 'King of Baku' is a media asset the team needs to keep sponsors engaged, especially when an American brand wants to make noise in Europe. General Motors did not join F1 just to sit at the back. They need moments that create waves. The Azerbaijan GP, with its high risk and chaos, is exactly the place to turn narrative into reality. But the story is fragile. If Pérez fails to reach the top ten, the 'King of Baku' label quickly becomes a liability. The contrarian view: the headline is overblown. Cadillac is not making a breakthrough with this engine change. It is managing an allocation cycle. The real issue is the seasonal limit on power-unit components. If the new spec pushes Pérez beyond the allocation, he will face a grid penalty. The original article never mentions allocation numbers, which warns us that we see half the picture and trust the other half fed to us by the team. The 'King of Baku' myth also ignores context. Pérez's record was built in faster cars. Misplaced expectations can breed mistakes: a driver over-drives, brakes too late, ends in the wall. On a track where one small error is fatal, memory never beats physics. In the long run, the real story is General Motors' strategy. Buying Ferrari engines is a temporary solution. If GM is serious about becoming a full manufacturer, it will develop its own power unit. The current deal is a bridge, not a destination. Cadillac will compete not only on track, but also in meeting rooms with other engine suppliers. The pressure for a new team is not Sunday's result, but behind-the-scenes development progress. For any new team, each race weekend is an operational test. Budkowski is not talking about victory; he talks about schedule pressure and fatigue. In football, I have seen many teams lose a season by confusing ambition with capability. F1 is no different: build stability, collect data, bring both cars home, then think about podiums. The new Ferrari spec may bring a few tenths per lap. But in Baku, a few tenths will not save a lap ruined by traffic. What decides things is the driver's patience and the team's timing on pit calls. That is why I never judge a new team by qualifying. Watch what happens from lap ten to lap thirty, when tyres start to degrade. So let us look at the Baku race with calm eyes. The new Ferrari spec is a technical detail, notable but not decisive. Pérez's Baku record is a beautiful number, but numbers only matter when placed in context. The transfer window is just the surface; the underlying cash flow is the real control board. Here, the cash flow lies under unrevealed engine contracts, under the 'King of Baku' media campaign, and under General Motors' industrial ambition. Contracts do not create eras; eras create contracts. This weekend, watch three things: Cadillac's pace in Free Practice, how they manage remaining engine allocation, and Pérez's eyes when a faster car passes him on the main straight. If all three look positive, Baku becomes a springboard. If not, this is just another race for a backmarker. Whatever the result, the truth remains beneath the surface, and I am waiting for it to surface. People ask me who will emerge this year. The right question is: who has been silently dying on the balance sheet? The Azerbaijan GP may not create an era for Cadillac, but it will show us where this team stands on that balance sheet.