Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar bills itself as a place where “Asian smokehouse meets Texas barbecue.” With a pair of James Beard Award winners, Chef Tyson Cole of Uchi and Aaron Franklin of Franklin Barbecue, leading the way, the restaurant pairs the “soul, technique, and flavors of Southeast Asia combined with traditional smoke flavors of the Lone Star State.” The pair opened the location in Austin on South Lamar Boulevard back in 2018, and have since expanded to another Austin location, as well as spots in Dallas and Houston.

But one night last week another flavor was added to the mix at the original location along South Lamar Boulevard.

One weekend each year Austin becomes the beating heart of one of the world’s fastest sports, the site of the United States Grand Prix. And during each such weekend, Austin is filled with events and activations that bring the sport to life, and bring the fans closer to the grid.

So it is on the Friday night ahead of race weekend that Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar transforms into the “Cadillac Ranch House,” welcoming race fans from around the world to an event showcasing F1’s newest team. For Cadillac, the United States Grand Prix is both a full-circle moment for leadership, and a chance to race in front of home fans in Austin for the first time since joining the grid.

It is also a perfect moment to take stock of their journey to this point.

Sergio Pérez has experienced both the highs, and the lows, of life on the F1 grid.

The veteran driver worked his way through the ranks up to a spot at Red Bull alongside Max Verstappen, where he helped power the team to a pair of Constructors’ Championships, and aided Verstappen’s efforts in claiming his individual world titles.

But on the other side of the ledger, Pérez lost that spot at Red Bull following the 2024 season, despite having signed a contract extension earlier in the year.

Life on the F1 grid can be cruel.

After a year away from the sport, Pérez agreed to be one of Cadillac’s drivers for the team’s inaugural 2026 season, adding a veteran presence to the newest team on the grid. And while Cadillac entered the United States Grand Prix still searching for the team’s first points in F1 — Pérez came across the line tenth at the Monaco Grand Prix, but a post-race penalty for being out of place on a restart dropped him down five spots and out of the points — he struck an upbeat tone on Thursday ahead of the race.

“We’re not lacking anything on the driver’s side,” outlined Pérez to the media, including SB Nation, on Thursday at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. “It’s really that once we get a little bit more performance, you know, once we close the gap a little bit more to the midfield, we will start [delivering results].

“The thing is that now we are overdelivering a lot as a team, but the car is just too far away.”

Pérez also pointed to the team’s new presence on the grid, outlining how the “big step” might be coming next season.

“Right now we are a new team, a smaller team. You are very limited with the budget cap, basically since we started the year. So, yeah, it’s more into next year,” said Pérez about when a big step forward could follow for F1’s newest team.

As for what kind of step the team will take, Pérez is expecting something “big.”

“We are expecting a big, a big step,” began Pérez. “I expect us to be making a very big step. That’s definitely the target. I think if we are able to do that, then we will be in a really good position to score points on a regular basis.”

Cadillac’s other driver for season one is no stranger to the grid. Alongside Pérez, Cadillac opted for Valtteri Bottas, who for years was Lewis Hamilton’s wingman at Mercedes. Bottas helped the team secure several Constructors’ Championships during his time in Brackley, and still holds the record for the fastest speed ever recorded during an F1 event, when he hit 378 km/h (234.88 mph) during qualifying for the 2016 Azerbaijan Grand Prix with Williams.

The pairing gave Cadillac a driver lineup with 16 Grand Prix wins and over 500 starts between them.

But like Pérez, Bottas knows that 2026 is all about building a foundation for the future, and not delivering immediate results.

“We obviously need to make the car faster, but we are not sacrificing 2027,” said Bottas in the FIA Press Conference ahead of the United States Grand Prix. “So, obviously, our focus is on next year’s car. It’s a long game.

“We know it’s going to be a tough end to the year for us, but it’s really all about building the foundation for the future and eventually for the results.”

Marcin Budkowski was not Cadillac’s first Team Principal.

That was Graeme Lowdon, who began the year at the helm of F1’s newest team. But in a mid-season shocker, Cadillac parted ways with Lowdon, turning to the long-time F1 engineer to take over stewardship of the team.

And similar to his two drivers, Budkowski knows that the vision for Cadillac is a long-term one, and immediate results are not the goal.

“It’s a tough one because, as the others mentioned, we stopped developing this year’s car. We brought some parts here that are actually more of an experiment for next year’s car that we’re running on Colton [Herta]’s car, and then doing some set-up work on Valtteri again, exploratory, not directly intended at this race, but just to scan the field of the set-up possibilities of the car, gain some valuable knowledge,” said Budkowski at the FIA Press Conference on Friday.

“And this is the kind of thing we’re doing for us as a new team. Every lap, every session, every race is a learning opportunity, and we’re trying to maximise that. Obviously, with races, we want to do the best possible result at every race, but we’re also conscious that we’re not competing for much as of today, and the biggest leverage, best usage of the time we have on the track, is to increase the team’s collective knowledge and experience and bring that into next year.”

Like Pérez, Budkowski believes a big step is possible next season.

But the Cadillac boss also knows there are areas where the sport’s newest team needs to improve, and it starts with, well, everywhere.

“We need to improve everywhere,” said Budkowski on the Friday ahead of the race.

“We are a new team where there’s a bunch of people that either came from different F1 teams but have never built a car together. They’ve never been able to iterate from a previous version of a car or take something that existed and make it better. We also have, I’m pretty sure, the highest proportion of people working in the team that do not have any prior F1 experience. And as we all know, it’s a very specialised sport. You need to bring these people up to speed.

“So, all that team is kind of blending together still at this stage. But on top of that, yes, there are a few things and to be honest, it didn’t take me two months; it took me two weeks to see clearly that there are a few areas that deserve more focus. And I’m not saying they’ve been neglected. We’re talking about a team that put a car design and built a car on the track in a record amount of time while at the same time building a team, recruiting people,” continued Budkowski.

“But for me, one of the first things is re-prioritising what we’re doing and putting the right amount of focus in the right areas. And not only focus, but when we talk about focus, we talk also about resources, human and financial, and making sure we spend our resources in the projects that matter and in the areas that matter. I think that was the biggest thing I did since I arrived.”

But before that “big step” is possible next season, a big event looms on Cadillac’s horizon: The launch of a brand-new power unit facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, later this calendar year. The opening of the sparkling-new facility comes as the team prepares to launch its in-house power unit program by the 2029 F1 season, as Cadillac currently operates as a customer team of Ferrari.

Budkowski stopped by the site on his way to Austin, and called it a “statement of ambition” from F1’s newest team.

“I was actually there on my way here. I stopped for a couple of days in Charlotte coming here. I was at GM Motorsports. I was at the power unit facility, the existing one, which is a provisional one, and the new one that’s coming off the ground. It’s there or thereabouts. It’s going to be inaugurated just before Christmas. A very, very impressive facility and, again, a statement of ambition from the Cadillac F1 Team and from General Motors in terms of being a fully works team by the end of the decade.

“That calendar is subject to a decision from the FIA and from us as an F1 community of teams and power unit manufacturers. We know there’s uncertainty on the calendar, and we are actually very proactively collaborating with the FIA and F1 on the next regulation cycle because, obviously, we are an interested party. We will be building an engine and running a works team, but also, we are passionate about the fact that it needs to be the right power unit for Formula 1.”

Sadly, Cadillac’s first United States Grand Prix did not exactly deliver a Hollywood ending.

Both Pérez and Bottas struggled in qualifying on Saturday, yet again failing to advance out of Q1 and starting at the back of the grid in the main event. And while Pérez managed to find the checkered flag, crossing the line down in P19, Bottas was forced to retire after 48 laps, due to an issue with his engine.

“Today presented a challenging race and we wanted to deliver a stronger result in front of our home fans. There were some encouraging signs in our race pace, with both drivers feeling closer to the competition than we had anticipated. We split the starting tire strategies to give us options in the race and learn more about the compounds for the best possible team result,” said Budkowski after the race.

“Unfortunately, Valtteri’s race ended with a suspected power unit issue, which we need to investigate fully. Checo brought the car home despite losing time in traffic. The team is operating much better at the track and I am happy with the progress, we just need a little bit more pace now to go fight with the teams ahead of us. With just a week until Mexico, our focus quickly shifts to preparing for another special weekend for the team, with Checo racing at home and celebrating his 300th Grand Prix.”

“Of course it’s always disappointing to not finish, it didn’t sound great from the engine side,” said Bottas in the media pen after the race. “But up until then, actually, it was at times quite positive because we were pretty close to the other cars, on pace.

“I thought it was going to be more difficult for us, honestly, so that’s why it’s kind of positive.”

The search for the team’s first points in Formula 1 rolls on.

Of course, none of that mattered on Friday night at Loro Steakhouse.

There are few arenas on the planet where Cadillac, an American brand and global powerhouse, could be considered an underdog. But on the Formula 1 grid, Cadillac is exactly that. The sport’s newest team, one of the sport’s smallest teams, and a team with inexperience throughout the factory, is trying to compete on one of the toughest stages in all of motorsport. And doing so under a massive microscope that spans the globe.

But to the throngs of fans at Loro Steakhouse Friday night, the future was the focus. While there were some in the crowd dressed to the nines, wearing suits or cocktail dresses, the bulk of the crowd was made up of Cadillac fans, wearing Pérez or Bottas hats and shirts, or wearing Cadillac-branded team gear. As I tackled the Austin streets, trying to make my way from the track to the restaurant, I found myself behind many cars decorated with messages of support for the team, and in particular support for Pérez. The two veteran drivers remain among the most popular on the grid, but for the Mexican driver, his support follows him everywhere he goes.

And as those fans waited for a turn on one of the F1 simulators, or wrote messages of support on blank models of Cadillac’s 2026 F1 car, or posed for pictures with Pérez’s MAC-26, or sipped on Jim Beam-infused cocktails, they carried that spirit of hope with them. They too know that the brighter days lie ahead for this team, but still they are here to support them, starting on the ground floor just like the team they support.

Maybe Cadillac is not fighting at the front of the F1 grid now, but someday, they might be.

And they will be there as well.

Eventually, Cadillac CEO Dan Towriss took to the stage and talked about how the race was a “full circle” moment for him, with the United States Grand Prix serving as the first F1 race he attended years ago, and now he was back, at the forefront of the sport’s newest team. He introduced the three key figures — Budkowski, Pérez, and Bottas — who shared their own thoughts about the first year on the grid, and the rest of the season ahead.

And their thoughts about that potential bright future.

The same energy that filled Loro Steakhouse that Friday evening is the same energy that has been powering this team since day one.

Note: SB Nation was an invited guest to the Cadillac Ranch House event.