Sergio Pérez(2)
Formula One
On 4 October 2010, Sauber announced that Pérez would join the team in 2011, replacing Nick Heidfeld. Sauber subsequently announced a partnership with Pérez's sponsor Telmex.[23] He became the fifth Mexican to compete in Formula One, and the first since Héctor Rebaque competed between 1977 and 1981. He also became a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy scheme in October 2010.[24]
Pérez finished seventh in his first race, the Australian Grand Prix, impressing observers by stopping to change tyres only once, becoming the only driver in the field to make fewer than two stops.[25] However, both Sauber cars were subsequently disqualified for infringing technical regulations.[26] He failed to repeat the result in Malaysia where body parts flew off Sébastien Buemi's Toro Rosso car and into the electrical system of Pérez's Sauber, forcing his retirement. The Chinese Grand Prix saw him start in 12th position and he struggled during the race as well as making contact with several drivers en route to 17th. He followed that up with fourteenth in Turkey, before a ninth-place finish in Spain – ahead of teammate Kamui Kobayashi in tenth – to take his first Formula One points.
During the third part of qualifying for the Monaco Grand Prix, Pérez lost control of his car upon exiting the circuit's tunnel section, swung to the right and crashed into the barrier, before sliding across the chicane and hitting the TecPro barrier with a heavy side impact.[27] He was seen holding his hands around his head in an attempt to protect it just before the final impact. The session was suspended, and marshals and medical personnel extricated Pérez from his car. A Sauber team spokesman said that he was conscious and able to talk after the accident, and had been taken to the circuit's medical centre.[28] He suffered a sprained thigh and concussion, and did not take part in the race the following day, on medical grounds.[29] After taking part in the first practice session of the Canadian Grand Prix, Pérez did not feel well enough and decided not to take any further part, and was replaced by Pedro de la Rosa.[30]
Pérez returned for the European Grand Prix and finished eleventh after attempting to run the race on a one-stop strategy. He took a career-best seventh at the British Grand Prix and eleventh in Germany. After a fifteenth place in Hungary, he retired in Belgium with suspension failure. This was followed by a gearbox failure while running seventh in Italy, before he scored a point in Singapore after losing ninth place to Felipe Massa. In Japan he took eighth place, before a sixteenth-place finish in Korea, tenth in India, and an eleventh-place finish in Abu Dhabi. He finished sixteenth in the Drivers' Championship with fourteen points.
On 28 July, it was announced that Pérez would remain with Sauber into the 2012 season, alongside teammate Kobayashi.[31] On 13 September, Pérez tested for Ferrari as part of the Ferrari Driver Academy in a Ferrari F60, Ferrari's car from the 2009 season. Pérez conducted the test with fellow academy member Jules Bianchi.[32]
Pérez started the season with eighth place at the Australian Grand Prix, losing several places on the final lap due to excessively-worn tyres.[33] In the second round at Malaysia, he went on to battle with Fernando Alonso for the win. In the dying laps of the race he was able to close the gap to 0.5 seconds, but was not able to make the pass as he went wide at turn 14 and fell back, finishing 2.2 seconds behind Alonso in second. Many observers praised his performance despite his late-race error,[34][35][36] taking Sauber's best result as an independent team.[citation needed] This drive won him plaudits and fuelled speculation of a move to Ferrari in the near future.[37] However, Pérez later told reporters that he expected to stay with Sauber until at least the end of the 2012 season.[38]
At the 2012 Chinese Grand Prix, he qualified a career-best eighth, but finished the race in eleventh place after problems with pit strategy and his car's clutch.[39] He finished outside the points in the next three races – despite recording the fastest lap in Monaco,[40] before Pérez achieved his second career podium at the Canadian Grand Prix, finishing the race in third place, having started fifteenth.[41]
In the European Grand Prix, Pérez qualified in fifteenth place, citing a handling imbalance and the car feeling "unpredictable" as reasons for the gap to Kobayashi in seventh.[42] He improved to ninth place in the race, but raised poor qualifying form as an issue for the team.[43] On lap 12 of the British Grand Prix, he collided with Pastor Maldonado, forcing him to retire with broken suspension. He later criticised the Venezuelan, claiming "Everybody has concerns about him" before adding, "He is a driver who doesn't know that we are risking our lives and has no respect at all".[44] Maldonado received a double penalty in the form of a reprimand and a €10,000 fine after the race. Pérez later added: "Just look at the last races. He ruined [Lewis] Hamilton's race (in Valencia), he ruined my race in Monaco by doing stupid things. I don't understand why the stewards don't take a serious decision with him. With Pastor they're not doing anything that will teach him a lesson."[45]
For the German Grand Prix, Pérez started in 17th position but was able to make his way through the field, and ultimately finished the race in 6th place.[46] At the Belgian Grand Prix, he made it into Q3 and qualified fifth fastest. A penalty for Maldonado subsequently promoted Pérez to a career-best fourth on the grid.[47] In the race, he was forced to retire in the first turn of the first lap after Romain Grosjean caused a spectacular accident. Grosjean crashed his car into Lewis Hamilton creating a domino effect which involved five cars. Also involved in the accident were, the championship leader Fernando Alonso and Pérez's teammate Kamui Kobayashi.[48]
Pérez took his third podium at the Italian Grand Prix. On Saturday, he failed to qualify for Q3 and was twelfth on the grid. On Sunday, he climbed through the field to second place, passing on track, among others, Kimi Räikkönen, Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa and Alonso. Unlike most of the drivers in the field, Pérez started the race on hard tyres and changed to the medium tyres on lap 29,[49] allowing him to lead the Grand Prix for five laps. As a result, Pérez and his car's outstanding tyre management got him well into the points, and ultimately, to a podium finish. Ultimately, he finished the season in tenth place in the Drivers' Championship with 66 points, 6 more than teammate Kobayashi.[50]
On 28 September 2012, Lewis Hamilton's decision to leave McLaren for Mercedes in 2013 was announced, and Pérez was subsequently confirmed as Hamilton's replacement.[51] He also replaced Hamilton in McLaren's cartoon Tooned.[52] This also ended Pérez' association with Ferrari, as he was released from its driver academy.
In the season-opening race in Australia, Pérez qualified 15th and finished in 11th position, later describing the weekend as "difficult" for himself and the team as a whole.[53] He started the Malaysian Grand Prix from ninth on the grid, and finished the race in the same position, scoring his first points for McLaren. He also achieved the fastest lap of the race, having pitted for fresh tyres.[54][55]
In the Bahrain GP, he started 12th on the grid and finished 6th ahead of Ferrari's Fernando Alonso (8th) and his teammate Jenson Button (10th), with whom he had a fierce duel in which they touched on a couple of occasions, increasing the competition between drivers in McLaren on the following races.[56]
After the Bahrain Grand Prix, Jenson Button said of Pérez's driving style:
I've raced with many team-mates over the years and with quite an aggressive team-mate in Lewis, but I'm not used to driving down the straight and then my team-mate coming along and wiggling his wheels at me and banging wheels with me at 300km/h. I've had some tough fights in F1 but not quite as dirty as that. That's something you do in karting and normally you grow out of it but that's obviously not the case with Checo [Pérez]. Soon something serious will happen so he has to calm down. He's extremely quick and he did a great job today but some of it is unnecessary and an issue when you are doing those speeds.
— Jenson Button speaking to ESPN about Pérez after the 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix[57]
