'We've got a whole load of work tonight' – Cadillac reflect on Friday issues ahead of Austrian GP

Cadillac have revealed that an electrical problem impacted Sergio Perez's running on Friday ahead of the Austrian Grand Prix, as Valtteri Bottas also suffered issues later in the day.

The American team arrived in Spielberg this weekend with an extensive upgrade package for their first-ever F1 car, and with hopes of moving further up the order and challenging the established midfield teams.

But the team suffered issues across both of Friday's one-hour sessions, with an electrical problem forcing Perez to a stop in Free Practice 1 which brought out a red flag at the end of the session.

"It's been a bit unfortunate," said Perez, who only completed 14 laps in FP1 and then just two laps in FP2 after coming to a stop on track again which ended his day of running.

"I want to start with the positive which is that we seem to be closer. Valtteri had a good session this morning, we could see a bit of light there. Unfortunately, running was very limited for me today.

"We don't really know what is the issue on my side, so we're going to be changing pretty much everything on the electrical side to make sure for tomorrow we can have a clean day because we have a lot of work ahead of us."

Bottas too suffered issues in the latter session, as an overheating issue meant he had to crawl back to the pits as sparks flew from underneath his Cadillac, the Finn only completing six laps.

Despite the setbacks, Cadillac's Chief Technical Officer Nick Chester believes that the team showed an increase in performance and is optimistic that if it can get on top of its reliability problems, it could pose a threat to the midfield runners.

"It was a tricky day but we brought a big package for both cars," he said. "The indications we had from FP1 were actually we've made a bit of a step with it, so that's good performance wise and now we've got a whole load of work tonight to sort out other issues but that's all part of the fun.

He added: "We've been super close to Q2 a few times. I think six-hundredths off at Monaco and pretty close in Miami. I think we've got a good shout at it but we need a nice, trouble-free FP3."