Sergio Perez's Formula 1 return with Cadillac has already eradicated his own doubts about coming back to the grid - and convinced him he is "one of the top drivers".

Time has served Perez well, and so have just a few races with F1's newest team. Though he is at the back of the grid and has not yet made it out of Q1 this season, much less scored a point, that of course is not a valid metric to judge him against given Cadillac's position.

Joining this project was never going to yield short-term success in the conventional sense but there is no doubt a strong start alongside Valtteri Bottas has provided an excellent immediate boost to Perez's reputation and given him clear satisfaction.

Where there was previously self-doubt and a bruised public reputation after the manner of his Red Bull exit at the end of 2024, there is now a rock-solid conviction in his own ability and wider paddock plaudits to go with that.

"I have to be realistic, and honest - I had doubts on coming back," Perez told The Race in an exclusive interview.

"The main reason was my family. I felt like I've had a great career. I knew my circumstances. I gave it everything and I was very happy with the career I've had. I'm in a very fortunate spot in my career because I didn't need to be back in F1.

"But I felt like at the same time I didn't want to leave the sport the way I left it. Because I believe myself that I'm one of the top drivers here. And coming back makes me realise that I'm one of the top drivers."

This is a punchy self-appraisal. But what is hard to dispute is that Perez looks a lot more like his best self again, a long way removed from the under-pressure individual who faded badly alongside Max Verstappen in the most difficult-to-drive Red Bull of Perez's four-year career there.

His confidence is back and, out of that pressure cooker and a world that revolves around someone else, so is the performance.

Off-track, Perez seems very comfortable in his new environment, happy and extremely motivated.

On-track, the emerging trend of him being faster and consistently stronger than team-mate Valtteri Bottas means Perez is clearly being seen as the early leader there.

He's been quicker in four of the last five qualifying sessions (sprints included) and apart from a battery deployment issue on his final run in Miami Q1, it could be 5-0 in that time.

There are even suggestions other teams in the midfield have taken notice that this is a driver back at his personal best – not one defined by the Red Bull slump that led to him falling off the grid just a few months after signing a new contract there.

"People that understand the sport, they can easily see the level that I'm driving at, the pace I'm having and the performance I'm having," Perez said.

"More than proving to everyone else, it's about proving it to myself again. The last six months at Red Bull were very tricky. And there were some circumstances that I had there that prevented me from performing the way I should have been performing.

"I'm very happy that I came back to prove it to myself. And that was the main thing."

What has happened at Red Bull since - the double failure of Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda - has earned Perez something of a reappraisal.

While Perez did not cope as well as he should have given Verstappen was still winning races in late 2024, and Perez was nowhere near that by the end, what he was achieving in the second car still went beyond what either of his successors managed. There is no shame in being somewhere between one of the greatest of all time and perfectly decent midfield drivers who also shrunk in a harsh spotlight.

And how bad 2024 got meant Red Bull was still justified in making a change. But it was handled poorly, to say the least, and Red Bull should have taken more responsibility for the failings of the second car and the environment that driver was operating in. 

Also, it's worth stressing that Perez being dumped late on by Red Bull didn't mean he deserved to be on F1's scrapheap entirely. Had he been released earlier he surely would have found a seat somewhere else because he quite clearly had plenty to offer in the right environment.

This is now being proven. And while Perez cannot pinpoint exactly when it happened, he has the assurance he needed. After a few sharp comments Red Bull's way last year when he was rejoining the F1 grid, his feeling in these first few months of 2026 certainly conveys a sense of closure about that disappointing final chapter. 

"That whole insight made me feel like, ‘yes, I was right' and the last six months doesn't mark my career," Perez said.

"I was in very difficult circumstances. Now it's clear to everyone. But the biggest thing is that it's clear for me that I belong at the top of the sport. That to me was the main thing of coming back."

Now Perez is deserving of more than he has, and wants more, too. It is not ‘I've moved on from Red Bull/made the world re-evaluate me, job done' - Perez needs to achieve something meaningful with Cadillac.

Judging its two drivers has been tricky this year because of Cadillac's varying operational performance. And that is something Perez is really pushing the team on because the pace is pretty respectable. Cadillac's vying with big-spending, underachieving works team Aston Martin every weekend to avoid being last, and even starting to annoy some established midfielders.

Where Perez has already grown "impatient" is Cadillac's operations. He dropped out of easily the team's most competitive race so far in Canada with a freak suspension failure, and said the operational side of the team is "lacking tremendously".

There have been myriad problems less dramatic than that suspension failure that the team has had to work through: systems to troubleshoot, processes to improve, technical issues to overcome. For example, Cadillac's had problems with the low-pressure fuel system that has made collecting and pumping fuel difficult, which have now been fixed.

Aspects other teams take for granted such as ensuring the perfect finish and fitting of aerodynamic parts to minimise performance loss, or making rapid changes in the garage between runs in qualifying, have also had to be improved too.

Then there's the problem of making the most of the car set-up wise over a weekend. Not only is Cadillac light on historic data, but it's inevitably playing catch-up in processing the vast amounts of data gathered during an event that must be interrogated to understand how to improve performance.

Progress is being made, it just cannot be linear, or fast enough, because F1 is such a brutal place to be learning while competing.

Perez describes being part of it as "one of the biggest challenges that I've faced in my career" and it is certainly one he seems to be pushing hard with. Nobody could accuse him of being a passive player in the process and the novelty of Cadillac making it to the grid (an achievement in itself!) did not last long.

"I know that I don't have all the time in the world," he said.

"I came here to make a successful project. And I know that every single weekend is crucial, in making sure that we make progress.

"For me, that's the main driving factor, I want to see more progress. I want to see progress quickly because unfortunately Formula 1 doesn't give you time.

"Everyone is impatient here. So for me, the next couple of races are very important, because they will determine how much progress we are making as a team.

"And for me, as long as we are making good progress, good steps in the right direction, it will give me enough motivation to carry on."

That is significant because, as mentioned previously, there has at least been a sniff around Perez in the wake of his strong start to 2026. Describing it as concrete interest from rival teams would probably be a stretch - and Perez is under contract at Cadillac - but he is creeping back onto the radar of teams that want to have a shortlist of options in case they end up needing a line-up change.

And while Perez is a loyal, committed driver and person, he is also realistic. As he says, "I don't have all the time in the world", and he does not want to end his F1 career with a point-less return.

That's why he is quite relentlessly harrying Cadillac's hierarchy with suggestions on personnel to chase, or areas to improve - it's then down to the leadership to navigate the realities of that process, the timelines that have to be respected and so on.

Perez is craving progress, though. He wants to contribute directly to it - on-track, he has, as he's been leading the movement closer to the main midfield teams, and even start to race and run ahead of some of them. Drivers from Haas, Racing Bulls and even Williams have been behind Perez at some point, especially in sprint races.

But he clearly has a short-term timeline in mind for certain things to get better, too.

"It's in all the areas," he said. "We as a team want to see progress in the pitstops, we want to see progress in the strategies, on understanding the tyres, on all the different departments.

"The bigger things will take time, like everything. But I think having the right structure will show good progress in the next couple of races. And that's the main objective in the team.

"We have all the resources in place, but we don't have all the tools or all the experience to look after them all. So it's a very tricky scenario in that regard.

"But I think the next couple of months are going to be the biggest test for Cadillac so far on how much we are able to progress."