Top Five Races: Sergio Perez
- Josh Suttill
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Popular Mexican driver Sergio Perez turns 26 today. To celebrate, we will be counting down his top five races during his time in F1.
Perez has certainly had an inconsistent time in his six seasons in Formula One so far. However, 2015 finally seemed to break the curse, in his second year with Force India, the former Sauber and McLaren driver excelled when the team switched to their B-spec car midway through the year.
In Russia, the Mexican picked up his fifth podium of his Formula One career and will be hoping to add to his podium tally in 2016 when he embarks on a third season with Force India.
Feel free to let us know your top five races by commenting below or tweeting us @ReadMotorsport
FIFTH PLACE - 2013 INDIAN GRAND PRIX
Qualified – 9th Finished – 5th
While this race will inevitably be remembered for being the stage on which Sebastian Vettel was crowned a quadruple world champion, this race witnessed one of Sergio Perez’s finest drives in Formula One.
2013 was arguably Perez’s most difficult season in his career, he found himself in one of the worst McLaren’s ever produced by the Woking outfit as 2013 marked only the second time since 1984 that McLaren have finished outside the top five in the constructors’ championship (excluding 2007 and the infamous ‘Spy-Gate’ scandal).
Perez struggled to match Button for most of the season however, India was a clear exception, while Button struggled to 14th from 10th on the grid, Perez came from ninth to fifth in typical Perez fashion.
Checo managed his tyres beautifully and even managed to pull off an outstanding double overtake on world champions Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton down the long straight for fifth place in the closing stages of the race.
FOURTH PLACE - 2014 BAHRAIN GRAND PRIX
Qualified – 5th (Started 4th) Finished – 3rd
After being dropped by McLaren at the end of 2013, Force India quickly snapped up the young Mexican alongside Nico Hulkenberg for the 2014 season.
Hulkenberg had the clear upper hand in the opening two rounds. The German out-qualified Perez in Australia and Malaysia and outscored him 18-1 by the time they arrived in Bahrain.
However, Perez came alive in Bahrain and quickly re-asserted himself as one of the best midfield drivers on the grid.
After qualifying a brilliant fifth in qualifying (not usually Checo’s strongpoint), he managed his tyres brilliantly and managed to fend off the arguably faster Red Bull’s and Williams’ as well as his team-mate Nico Hulkenberg.
Perez looked comfortable all race and once again proved his composure when in a position to score a podium.
His third place allowed Force India to score their first podium since the 2009 Belgium Grand Prix.
THIRD PLACE - 2015 RUSSIAN GRAND PRIX
Qualified – 7th Finished – 3rd
With Checo’s home race on the horizon, the 2015 Russian Grand Prix proved to be the perfect way to raise the Mexican fan’s hopes of seeing their man on the podium in Mexico City.
Perez started a respectable seventh, he made a great start while his teammate spun collecting Marcus Ericsson and ending both of their races.
When Nico Rosberg retired with a throttle problem, the fight for third place seemed to be between Kimi Raikkonen and Valtteri Bottas.
However, Perez managed to make a mammoth 41 lap stint on the soft (prime) tyres work until the penultimate lap where both Bottas and Raikkonen finally overtook him on much faster tyres.
However, a few corners later, Raikkonen and Bottas collided promoting Sergio Perez back up to the podium places.
Although Checo was lucky with his two main rivals colliding, his excellent tyre management earned him a very well deserved fifth podium in Formula One.
SECOND PLACE - 2012 ITALIAN GRAND PRIX
Qualified – 13th (started 12th) Finished – 2nd
It’s no surprise that after Perez secured his third podium of the 2012 season in Monza that McLaren quickly snapped him up to replace the outgoing Lewis Hamilton.
After qualifying a disappointing 13th on Saturday, Perez turned it all round on the Sunday with an inspirational drive in front of the Tifosi.
It was the Tifosi’s beloved Ferrari which Perez beat to second place and he nearly scored his maiden grand prix victory earlier in the season but lost out to Alonso earlier in the season in Malaysia.
Perez pitted on lap 30 for fresh tyres and came out in eighth place. As the two Red Bull’s fell by the wayside including double world champion Vettel who received a drive-through for pushing Alonso off the track.
Perez found himself in fourth with the two Ferraris in front of him. He made quick work of Massa and dispatched championship leader Alonso.
Perez made numerous great moves throughout the race including on much more experienced world champions once again making it easy for fans to forget Perez’s young age at the time.
He finished just over four seconds behind Hamilton and had the race gone on for just a few laps longer it would be tough to bet against Perez taking his maiden grand prix victory.
FIRST PLACE - 2012 MALAYSIAN GRAND PRIX
Qualified – 10th (started 9th) Finished – 2nd
The 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix quickly catapulted Perez to the top of the big Formula One team’s radars after an outstanding performance at one of the worst weather hit races of the decade.
Perez made the brave decision to switch from the intermediate tyres to the full wet tyres after just one lap. This inspired choice propelled Perez into the lead after the race was re-started when the extreme weather conditions warranted the deployment of the safety car and a red flag.
He lost the lead to Alonso on lap 16 but as the track started to dry out, Perez closed in on Alonso by five seconds and was poised to overtake Alonso.
However, Sauber was slow to react to the changing weather conditions and Alonso pitted earlier for slicks leaving Perez just over seven seconds behind the Spaniard.
All the odds seemed stacked against the Mexican but he defied the lack of the pace in the Sauber and put in blistering lap after blistering lap to catch Alonso once more until he made an error on lap 50.
Controversially this mistake came just after Perez received a radio message from Sauber- “be careful we need this position” adding to the fact that Sauber left Perez out longer than they should have done earlier in the race and fueling the conspiracies over whether Sauber was instructed by Ferrari to let Alonso win.
On purpose or not, Perez just missed out on a historic maiden victory but still captured the hearts of many and became of the underdog of many more races over the next few seasons.
While Checo is most well known for achieving podiums through outstanding tyre preservation, the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix proved that Perez was master of the wet and on his day could be the quickest driver in Formula One.
It’s so easy to forget that Perez was just 22 years old when he stood on the podium alongside world champions Alonso and Hamilton, two men he hopes to emulate in future.