Sergio Perez's Sponsors Did Him No Favours During 2017 Force India Negotiations
Never before had a Formula One driver's downfall been celebrated with such unbridled joy.
Little more than a year after McLaren chose him—not Nico Hulkenberg, not Paul Di Resta—to lead them into life after Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez was gone, deemed to have less ultimate potential than a driver without a single grand prix appearance to his name.
The confirmation of Kevin Magnussen's promotion alongside Jenson Button in November 2013, a matter of weeks after securing the Formula Renault 3.5 championship, had left Perez with precious little time to find a race seat for the following season.
And as he faced the end of his F1 career at the tender age of 23, everyone—spectators, observers and, most despicably, his fellow drivers—couldn't wait to rub his nose in it.
After years of helplessly watching so-called pay drivers coming over here and taking their jobs, this, at last, was payback.
A significant, potentially precedent-setting shift in priorities. A welcome reminder that F1 teams still did make signings based on talent over money.
Talent. Over. Money.
From the moment he fell into the Force India safety net around a month after being replaced by a rookie, Perez's career has been almost entirely geared toward dispelling the myth that he is little more than a dirty, grubby pay driver of Pastor Maldonado-esque proportions.
In an accommodating, warm environment—surrounded by "very good people" who "do their job properly" in an apolitical atmosphere, as he told Motorsport.com's Darshan Chokhani—Perez has matured beyond recognition after finally finding himself a home.
With four podium finishes in less than three seasons, he is by far the most successful driver in Force India's relatively short history and, having consistently outperformed a team-mate of Hulkenberg's calibre in recent years, is now regarded as one of the most polished performers outside of a leading team.
A driver with plenty of talent—and with plenty of financial support for good measure.
Such was the extent of Perez's transformation that he had seemed set to earn that rarest of opportunities—a second chance with a front-running team—for 2017, with the Mexican strongly linked to a move to Ferrari during Kimi Raikkonen's now-traditional mid-season crisis.
But on the day Raikkonen's latest new deal was announced ahead of the British Grand Prix, Force India team principal Vijay Mallya revealed Ferrari were never a genuine option for Perez.
He told Autosport (h/t Eurosport) his driver had signed a contract extension "several weeks" earlier and would be remaining with the team for a fourth consecutive season in 2017.
Only that wasn't exactly the case.
As reported by Autosport (h/t Eurosport), Perez had agreed a new contract with Force India, but "an escape clause" created an uncomfortable situation whereby his personal sponsors—including Mexico's Telmex and Telcel brands—had the power to take him wherever they wanted for 2017, opening discussions with Renault and Williams.
As the saga dragged on and on—per Sky Sports' Matt Morlidge, the driver initially intended to resolve his future during the summer break but was forced into delay after delay—the backers became increasingly disrespectful toward the team who had provided him with so much since rescuing his career.
And, in trying to secure the best possible deal for Perez, they were inadvertently harming the reputation he, through the quality of his on-track performances, had worked so hard to repair following the damaging McLaren experience.
Ahead of the recent Malaysian GP, Perez aired his frustrations with the protracted negotiations, warning he would "look somewhere else" if an agreement was not reached imminently, per ESPN F1's Lewis Larkam, before his one-year contract extension was finally confirmed hours after the Sepang race.
Even then, though, the mood emerging from Force India strongly suggested the driver's cronies had a large, almost unhealthy degree of influence over the team.
The team's official statement—entitled, "Sergio Perez confirms his plans to stay at Sahara Force India have been finalised," as opposed to, say, "Sahara Force India confirms Sergio Perez for 2017"—featured only quotes from the driver, with no comments from Mallya or deputy team boss Bob Fernley.
Now that his future has been settled, Perez is finally free to focus on the things that really matter.
To continue his development as a driver. To lead Force India to a highest-ever result of fourth in the constructors' championship, surpassing their previous best result of fifth in 2015.
And, perhaps most crucially, to prove he is capable of adapting to vastly different cars—and a new style of racing—when the major regulation changes are implemented in 2017, when his delicate, Button-like throttle application may not be enough to deliver the kind of results he is currently achieving.
With Telcel and Claro branding already prominent on the scarlet-red cars—and with Perez, for all the progress he has made since 2014, still viewed as one of the least dangerous threats to Sebastian Vettel and therefore an ideal No. 2 to the four-time world champion—a future Ferrari seat is surely his to lose.
But during this unusual, messy and at times distasteful episode, the balance between Perez's talent and money was a little too close for comfort.
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