I imagine there have been a few Formula One teams furiously clambering to obtain the signature of a certain young driver who’s taken the sport by storm.
The young Mexican Sergio Perez stormed to a second place finish in Sunday’s Italian GP at Monza, after a high-risk, high-reward pitstop strategy. What made his second place finish even more impressive is that he overtook both the Ferrari’s of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso within a few laps of each other. Oh, and he drives a Sauber!
Since ending its racing partnership with BMW, the Sauber team basically had to start from scratch with a significantly smaller budget and no sponsors. Two years down the line and the Swiss team is mixing it up with the big boys of F1. Perez was signed by Sauber in 2011 after a very successful time in GP2 – the feeder series for F1 – and he immediately built a reputation as a driver who can look after his tyres much better than any other driver. His rookie season was a quiet one but this season he’s come into his own and has already ended on the podium three times. If we’re frank about it, that car should struggle to be a top 10 contender, much less a podium contender but at the hands of Perez Sauber have a potential race winner.
So if I were a team principal undecided over my driver lineup for next season, I’d definitely give Perez’s agent a call. He’s already on Ferrari’s books as one of their emerging drivers so I’d imagine they’d have first option, but nothing is clear cut in the world of F1. With Lewis Hamilton being linked to a move to Mercedes for 2013, Perez may be just the solution for Martin Whitmarsh if they do lose Hamilton. Merc will no doubt look to snap up Perez if Hamilton stays at McLaren and Michael Schumacher retires for a second time.
Perez has the makings of a future world champion and he’ll launch a serious assault from as early as next season if he joins the right team.