Cadillac’s recurring Formula 1 brake cooling problem remains one of the biggest development challenges facing the new American team after Valtteri Bottas retired from the Hungarian Grand Prix with overheating. An enlarged front brake duct package introduced specifically to address the issue was not enough to eliminate it, underlining how Cadillac’s lack of accumulated F1 experience is affecting an area of the car that is far more complicated than it appears.
Yet the problem also offers an important opportunity. If Cadillac can understand how to control brake temperatures more effectively, the benefits could extend beyond reliability. Better thermal management could allow the team to recover aerodynamic performance, improve the conditions experienced by the tyres and unlock further potential from the MAC-26 during the second half of its debut season.
Cadillac’s F1 brake cooling problem strikes again in Hungary
Cadillac’s Formula 1 project is completely new, having started from a blank sheet of paper. Inevitably, that means the team is encountering situations for the first time that established rivals have been studying and refining for years. Brake cooling is one of the clearest examples.
Valtteri Bottas’s Hungarian Grand Prix unfortunately ended in retirement after only around 20 laps because of a brake overheating problem. Cadillac had believed an upgrade introduced specifically to combat the phenomenon would help address the weakness, but Budapest showed that more work is required. The team has been dealing with the problem for some time, which is understandable for a new operation, yet it continues to represent one of the most persistent issues with Cadillac’s debut F1 car.
From the opening races of the season, the American team has struggled to manage its brakes, particularly their temperatures. On several occasions Cadillac has encountered glowing brake discs and even the beginnings of fires. The problems have been especially evident at the front of the car, partly because more of the deceleration at the rear is being handled by the MGU-K this year rather than by the mechanical brakes.
Why Cadillac enlarged the MAC-26 front brake ducts
Cadillac already knew that the MAC-26 had difficulties at circuits that place particularly severe demands on the braking system. Monaco was one example, with very little time between braking zones for the components to dissipate accumulated heat.
Budapest presented another difficult test because of the high temperatures and the amount of time drivers spend using the brake pedal around the lap. Cadillac therefore introduced a significant development for the Hungarian weekend after its previous troubles, having already prepared a specific brake upgrade for the Hungarian Grand Prix.
The modifications increased the size of the front brake ducts, particularly their width, allowing a greater volume of air to reach and cool the braking system. It is normally a compromise teams would prefer to avoid. Engineers generally try to make brake ducts as small as possible to minimise their aerodynamic impact in an area already affected by turbulence generated by the tyres.
In Cadillac’s case, however, reliability had to take priority over aerodynamic efficiency. Ultimately, even the larger ducts were not sufficient to prevent another overheating problem.
“The new front brake ducts were supposed to reduce this problem, trying to prevent it from happening [the overheating]. But clearly, we still need more air going through the brakes. That’s clear, but we’re also at a track with extreme conditions,” Valtteri Bottas explained after the Hungarian Grand Prix, identifying one of the areas Cadillac clearly needs to improve.
The retirement added to an already difficult run of reliability problems for Cadillac. Similar brake overheating had previously affected both drivers in Austria, where Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez both suffered brake-related difficulties.
Why F1 brake cooling is far more complicated than it looks
So why is Cadillac struggling so much with brake temperatures? From the outside, the system can appear relatively straightforward: a brake assembly sits inside a drum-like enclosure within the wheel. In reality, this is one of the most critical and technically complex areas of an entire Formula 1 car.
Although the cars have changed with the introduction of the new technical cycle, data accumulated over previous seasons remains valuable when engineers need to understand where to intervene and how to improve thermal management. That historical knowledge gives established Formula 1 teams an important advantage.
The FIA has imposed certain restrictions, but the fundamental principles remain largely unchanged, as do several aspects of the regulations. Incoming airflow must be used to cool the brakes before exiting through a specified area, without serving any secondary aerodynamic purpose.
It is precisely in this field that Cadillac has no previous Formula 1 experience to draw upon. For the team, it is completely new territory.
Airflow and heat extraction are at the heart of Cadillac’s problem
Some circuits have long straights, providing enough time to channel the airflow required to cool the brakes effectively. That is not the case everywhere. At other tracks, straights are shorter or a succession of heavy braking zones places repeated thermal loads on the system with little recovery time in between.
The difficulty therefore does not necessarily lie with the brakes themselves, but with managing their cooling. The system needs sufficient incoming airflow and, crucially, must extract the accumulated heat extremely efficiently as that air leaves the assembly.
It is a particularly complex science. The first objective is to keep the brake discs and calipers within a defined operating temperature range so that components fundamental to both performance and safety continue to work correctly.
The second objective is to prevent temperatures from climbing excessively high. If that happens, the heat can damage surrounding components and potentially contribute to the small fires Cadillac experienced during the first half of the season.
CFD plays a crucial role in brake thermal management
Solving the problem requires extensive fluid dynamics analysis within volumes that are tightly defined and limited by Formula 1’s technical regulations. In CFD simulations, engineers study the air entering the brake assembly, how that airflow interacts with its internal components and how the cooling process can be maximised.
The difficult part is finding the correct balance between all of those requirements without going too far in one direction. Increasing airflow may improve cooling, for example, but larger openings can create an aerodynamic penalty elsewhere on the car.
This is precisely where Cadillac lacks the experience its established rivals have accumulated through years of Formula 1 development. Its debut campaign has already demonstrated how difficult that learning process can be, with the team’s mid-season development programme complicated by upgrades that have not always delivered the expected progress.
Cadillac’s brake weakness could become a development opportunity
However, Cadillac’s limited experience also means there is potentially significant room for improvement. Once its engineers understand how to manage brake temperatures more effectively, controlling the system should become easier and the benefits could spread into several other performance areas.
More efficient cooling could allow Cadillac to reduce some of the aerodynamic compromises currently required to keep temperatures under control. The tyres could also benefit because brake and wheel temperatures form part of the wider thermal environment around the corner of the car.
In that sense, what is currently one of Cadillac’s clearest weaknesses could eventually become an opportunity to make a substantial step forward. Understanding the MAC-26’s thermal behaviour would not merely reduce the risk of further retirements; it could give engineers greater freedom to optimise the car aerodynamically and help them manage the tyres more effectively.
That progress will be important after a difficult first half of Cadillac’s debut campaign, which reached the summer break with zero points and nine retirements. The Hungarian weekend again demonstrated how much remains to be learned, with the 2026 Hungarian Grand Prix classification recording another double retirement for Cadillac.
The challenge now is to turn those painful lessons into development gains. Brake cooling may appear to be only one small part of an extraordinarily complicated Formula 1 car, but for a new team still building its technical knowledge from the ground up, solving it could help unlock a meaningful step forward in several areas of the MAC-26.
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