Perez: “My goal is to be in a big team”

F1 Fanatic round-up

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In the round-up: Sergio Perez is eyeing a move to a bigger team to challenge for victories.

F1 Fanatic Live: IndyCar Grand Prix of Alabama

Join us later today for F1 Fanatic Live during the second round of the IndyCar championship.

Round one winner Helio Castroneves started on pole position at the Barber Motorsport Park road course.

James Hinchliffe joins him on the front row with Rubens Barrichello 14th on the grid.

UK coverage starts at 7:30pm on Sky Sports 4.

Links

Top F1 links from the past 24 hours:

Perez targets a championship challenge in next two years (ESPN)

“In the future my goal is to be in a big team and to be fighting for victories. The most important thing is having a car that gives me the chance to win races.”

Adrian Sutil drops appeal in assault case (AutoWeek)

Adrian Sutil, the 29-year-old German driver who lost his Force India Formula One ride at the end of last season, has withdrawn his appeal against a conviction of assault.”

Horner defends Vettel (Sky)

“These guys get a microphone shoved in front of him just after he’s effectively lost a fourth-place position and of course he was annoyed, he vented his frustration.”

Formula One guru speaks about new film ‘Rush’ (Slough & South Bucks Observer)

Alastair Caldwell: “I didn’t want to be involved in motor racing any more. Your whole life is spent asking for money from people you don’t like and I didn’t want to do that.”

Some classic Gilles (Peter Windsor)

“Gilles accelerated cleanly out of the first corner, backed off (again!) for the kink and dived for the inside for the hairpin left. For Laffite, the gate was shut. The others darted around, gaining and then dropping back, but only by inches.”

Australia 2012 Pt II: F1 Australian Grand Prix (Tokyo Fox)

“Apart from a brief demonstration at Tokyo Motor Sport 2008 I had never heard the unbelievable noise which comes from the F1 cars until one went under the footbridge we were crossing. Almost deafening and we were so lucky to be given some free earplugs from a kind spectator which were essential for making my weekend more comfortable and enjoyable.”

Comment of the day

We had several great quotes for the Caption Competition including suggestions from Ivz, Sw6569 and Chris.

However I picked this one from Ben Stone as my favourite:

“No matter how hard we try to find somewhere private it always feels like Lewis is right behind us.”

From the forum

Happy birthday!

No F1 Fanatic birthdays today.

If you want a birthday shout-out tell us when yours is by emailling me, using Twitter or adding to the list here.

On this day in F1

The non-championship Brussels Grand Prix was won 50 years ago today by Willy Mairesse, driving a Ferrari 156.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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58 comments on “Perez: “My goal is to be in a big team””

  1. “These guys get a microphone shoved in front of him just after he’s effectively lost a fourth-place position and of course he was annoyed, he vented his frustration.”

    Yeap, but he’s a professional. If he has some problems with Karthikeyan, he can go down to HRT and talk to him, and even insult him personally… not via the media. He’s the World Champion, he should watch his words, it’s not like he got a radio message live, he said it after the race.

    1. He’s said in interviews that he understands the power of the media. He must really have seen “the red mist” coz his comments were only ever going to impact on him negatively. After this I’d be interested to see whether he keeps his opinions to himself (and/or speaks to the pther driver in private as @fer-no65 suggested) if faced with a similar scenario

    2. also doesn’t explain the derogatory comments made by Horner which were widely reported.

      1. I missed the Horner comments. Any links?

      2. Me too, @hairs Any links?

    3. Also the fact that he basically said the same thing twice kind of takes away some of the spontaneous thing.
      Personally i don’t care much if a driver gets ****** with another and throws a word at him but trying to repetitive assault him when his just a back-marker and in an incident that wasn’t 100% foolish driving from the back-marker is a little too much.

    4. SV is a professional, but he is also human and in the heat of the moment is when one usually sees a side of a person that is far from being their normal professional reaction to things. ie. not only do I see nothing wrong with some comments that show disappointment and ultimate passion to do well, again, in the heat of the moment, I also think BE longs for more drivers to say what is on their mind and spice things up rather than being corporate robots. And who’s to say SV didn’t also talk directly to NK about it too? I’m sure it will all blow over quite quickly, (no doubt already has), as professional athletes are trained to not get too high on the highs, nor too low on the lows, and I’m sure they are both looking forward to the next race.

      As to SP’s comments about wanting to soon be fighting for WDC’s…I would expect nothing less from any F1 driver. Doesn’t mean that within 2 or 3 years he will actually be fighting for WDC’s. But of course that is his wish. He needs to show us way more yet though.

  2. I like what I’ve seen from Perez so far. When he has shone in races it has been when he has preserved his tyres enough to make one less pit stop than his nearest competitors. I appreciate the skill of preserving the tyres, but part of me wants to see what he can do when he’s really attacking and putting the car on the ragged edge.

    1. “…but part of me wants to see what he can do when he’s really attacking and putting the car on the ragged edge.”

      That’s what he did in Malaysia. He certainly wasn’t preserving his tires. It seemed like he was setting a new fast lap every time around.

      1. @carolinablue704 perhaps it’s just that I’d like to see it more. I know that he can’t be consistently setting fastest laps in the sauber, I appreciate that the team will put him on the strategy that will yield them the most points (in many cases so far one which has required him to get the most out of preserving his tyres, and he’s risen to the challenge brilliantly), and I do enjoy what the new tyres have brought to the sport (with no refuelling they contribute massively to race strategy and make the races more interesting). However the boy clearly has speed, and I’d like to be able to see him fighting directly on track with his nearest rivals and going for the overtake more often. I know it’s not his fault or the team’s fault, as I said they’re maximising their race package, he’s just not had much opportunity in F1 to show how racey he can be.

      2. @carolinablue704 Yep. He was pushing for the win.

    2. We know about Perez alot of guys including myself tipped him to beat Kobayashi I know the championship just has started nontheless he has shown superiority, the question here is should he or shouldnt he avoid these questions, just for the moment, obviously he is eyeing Ferrari but after all said about Massa he may have just shot himself in the foot too much expectation over a weird race.

  3. My concern for Perez is that if he joins Ferrari, he won’t be allowed to mount a championship challenge, and instead be expected to get results to help Ferrari secure a better constructors’ championship position while Alonso chases the drivers’ title. The problem is that, as a Ferrari development driver, Ferrari have the first claim to him – so even if an opening became available at somewhere like Red Bull or McLaren, it is unlikely that Perez could move there. I think it would have to come down to what sponsors are willing to do. Sauber has backing from Carlos Slim Helu through three of his brands – Claro, Telmex and Telcel. Slim has another brand, América Móvil, which is a sort of parent company to all of his mobile phone networks. And I believe that América Móvil has a partnership of sorts with Vodafone where they work together to expand their coverage in Latin America. So, if an opening were to become available at McLaren, and if Slim and Vodafone were to do a bit of manoeuvring, then it’s possible Perez could wind up in a team where he would be allowed to compete.

    1. Ferrari have the first claim to him

      Do they? How do they prevent another team from approaching him? And how do they prevent him from accepting?

      1. Probably something in his contract that guarantees them the right to mak the first offer to him should a seat become available. Perez would not be obligated to accept it, but he would probably not be allowed to consider other offers before he considered Ferrari’s. In the event that someone like McLaren started sniffing around, all Ferrari would have to do is say “We have an available seat next year” and exercise the clause that means Perez has to consider their offer first.

        The entire point of a driver development program is to invest in young drivers in the hopes that they will come good and will one day race for you. No team in their right mind will spend all that money supporting a driver, only to be forced to stand back as another team steals that driver away. There is clearly going to be something in Perez’s development program contract that guarantees Ferrari the right to approach him first. After all, Red Bull managed to hold onto Sebastian Vettel, and McLaren kept Lewis Hamilton for themselves. There was a time when Ferrari would have snatched both of them up in a heartbeat, but because they were in programmes with other teams, Ferrari were unable to do anything. You can bet that they will have structured their development programme the same way to protect their investment.

        1. Well said PM

        2. If it works anything close to football players’ contracts and first option clauses of clubs then it’s really not much of an obstacle. It would just mean that if an offer from other big team comes, than Ferrari has the right to put their own and have it considered in the first place with Sauber unable to reject it. If Perez wants to drive for other team than Ferrari than he just says “no” to them, effectively cutting ties to Ferrari. But I’m afraid it’s more than that. It would be logical to have some kind of co-ownership clause, meaning that de facto Ferrari guys decide where Perez goes and have to approve any team change and get paid for it, and to some extent he already is a Ferrari driver.

      2. I know that the Mexican flag is similar to the Italian but Santander is overpowering interest inside Ferrari, no one wants to mess with the title sponsor still who knows if Mexican sponsors cant make an even more tempting offer to Ferrari ? To be honest Alonso has been so dominant that no team would risk to ruin the only part of the team that seems to be delivering.

        1. @ukfanatic – Technically, Ferrari has no title sponsor. It has been that way ever since they dropped Malboro from their name. Phillip Morris owns all of the space on the car, and sponsors buy up their little chunk of the car from them through the team.

          Nevertheless, Santander could probably find Perez useful. They have a presence on practically every continent, but as a Spanish bank, they have a second home in the Spanish-speaking parts of Latin America, including Mexico. And since they’re a bank and Claro/Telmex/Telcel are in telecommunications, there’s no real conflict of interests between sponsors. So I certainly don’t think Santander would object to Perez joining Ferrari.

          From Ferrari’s point of view, letting both their drivers compete with one another can cause more problems than it solves. Red Bull could have caught Jenson Button and Brawn in 2009. Button did not coast to the title the way so many people thought he did – Brawn literally ran out of money, and were relying on one-time sponsor deals just to get to the next race. So Red Bull could have caught them, but the problem was that Vettel and Webber were too busy taking points off one another to mount an actual challenge of their own. This is something Ferrari would be eager to avoid, especially since they have not won a Drivers’ title since 2007, or a Constructors’ title since 2008.

          1. I’m sure that there are reasons behind the fact why Ferrari remains sponsorship remains in the hands of Morris group.
            About Perez and Santander you werent taking in account the huge nationalism in Spain, Secondly we dont know how powerfull can be Mexican sponsors some oil company may get involved, and finnally about drivers taking points from each other both 07 (Mclaren obviously suffered more) and 08 Ferrari suffered from the same problem especially in 08 and that didnt meant that Kimi wasnt good enough team mate to help Massa, its down to the personalitys and team direction and I belive as you do that Ferrari shouldnt put in risk the only part of their team that is really delivering. Mclaren have been lucky lately for having a very understanding 2nd driver still Mclaren are constatntly making mistakes and making too many bad team orders but somehow their team is avoiding stress surrounding the team line-up and tactical decisions and they’re even throwing rocks at another teams. I know that im probably going out of topic, but Mclaren have had many issues with dealing with big egos and they would do it again Ferrari on the other side have never let 2 drivers of the same calibre drive for their outfit still they are critized for being unfair with the nº2 driver I just dont get it?!

    2. if he joins Ferrari, he won’t be allowed to mount a championship challenge

      That’s a massive assumption, one that I personally don’t agree with.

      1. Right, because Ferrari have a documented history of always letting their drivers compete.

        1. I think Ferrari would let their drivers compete if they showed to the team that they were both capable of winning the drivers title or were evenly matched in performance. Massa pre-accident and Raikkonen for instance.

          1. Kimi is one such driver who does not care or complain about his teammate. That was the sole reason for Kimi-Felipe fighting in 2007 and 2008. If Alonso would have been in a Ferrari from 2007, Felipe would never have fought for WCs in 2007 and 2008. Alonso is sensitive about who his teammate is and what does he get compared to him.

            If you say about evenly matched performance, then in Germany 2010, Ferrari should have let them fight. Same was the story in Korea 2011. Alonso gets desperate if he is not ahead of his team mate.

          2. no ferrari didnt let them race in germany as alonso was fighting for the world title. massa was not. its basics .

            and dont bring up team orders rule cos mclaren made montoya give kimi about 3 wins in 05 and no one battered an eye lid.

            ferrari have shown in 07 and 08 which ever is better will get the chance. currently massa is not better. they gave him a new chassis in a week, what more do u want?

          3. FlyingLobster27
            1st April 2012, 18:26

            If you call being nearly 50 points behind “fighting for the title”, ok. Because that’s where Alonso was at the time.
            Yes there was still a long way to go – 8 races in fact -, but do you stop whoever is behind half-way through the season from winning races? I’m ok with team orders, even sacrificing wins, when the title battle is poised and clear, and that doesn’t happen until the last 2, 3 rounds at most, not 10!

          4. @david-a…fair enough but that only works if both drivers have an equal opportunity on the team to show their race-winning capability. It doesn’t work the way you say it if the team reeks of being all about one driver, and it especially doesn’t work if the car is built specifically with one driver in mind. Then it is completely unfair to expect the teammate to ‘simply’ compete and show he is just as capable of earning equal status and opportunity. I’m not saying that is the reality with FA and FM right now, nor that it would be the case if SP replaced FM this year or next, but it has happened as I have spelled out in the past at Ferrari. And it overwhelmingly seems to be the opinion that right now the team is FA’s and if SP joined it would be FA’s and SP there to support and learn. So if he’s there to support and learn he’s not going to be in the right ‘environment’ to compete against FA.

            So in general, I believe a top team like Ferrari, if they are to honour the viewing audience and the spirit of the sport, of racing, should always have two WDC level drivers duking it out. If they are to always instead have a top driver and an up and comer there to learn and not compete but to climg the ladder, then we will always be robbed of true racing at Ferrari. Let’s see SP prove himself over more than just one wet race before we decide if he is worthy of Ferrari. Let’s see Ferrari truly challenge FA before we honour their behaviour in the pinnacle of racing. Unless they’re just interested in more numbers compiliation ala MS/Ferrari that robbed the viewing audience of genuine racing, while the likes of Mac shows the way to honour the audience.

      2. I fully agree.

      3. He won’t win much in a Ferrari as long as Alonso can whine over his pit radio about how “fast” he is.

        1. It’s no secret that Alonso demands preferential treatment over his teammate. But what most critics fail to see is that there aren’t a lot of drivers who can match Alonso to begin with. We have had only one driver to match Fernando over the years, and that has been Lewis. The rest of Fernando’s teammates have been beaten to a pulp by him.

          So before making the assumption of whether Fernando would complain about his teammate’s being ahead of him, just think if they actually have what it takes to be ahead of Alonso in the 1st place.

          1. It would be interesting to see now how it played out if alonso was to have a team mate who could match him

          2. Massa beat Alonso in four of the first seven races in 2010. Alonso whined very, very, loudly at the time.

          3. You’re absolutely right Todfod.

            I’m a huge Alonso fan but yes, one thing I’m not fussed about with his ‘demands’ is effectively that he HAS to be number one. But still….there are a great many more things I admire about him than things I don’t!!

            The only person who has kept up with….and actually beaten him (having McLaren/Ron Dennis behind him notwithstanding) is Hamilton, who is the fastest driver on the grid and very talented. But of course, the Hamilton of ’07 was outstanding and arguably was his best year!

            Alonso is just awesome….every year!! So Todfod’s premise is correct, the chances or anyone actually beating Alonso (given Alonso’s supernaturaly consistency) is very slim indeed!

    3. My concern is that if he joins Ferrari I won’t be able to support him to quite the same extent I otherwise would.

    4. 2-3 years Alonso would’ve won another Championship at least with Ferrari other wise he would give up with the Scuderia and maybe move on also he will be roughly 33 – not pension worthy material by any means as a certain 7 times World Champion, carries the burden of 43 years but seams to be doing just fine Physically – but Ferrari may feel they need to search for their future Pin Up star which from what I have seen over the last 3 seasons clearly isn’t Massa. If young Checo can keep delivering good performances in that Sauber, surely he is in better position than others such as Kubica and Bianchi to take the seat. I don’t see why Ferrari would spoil any talent that he possesses to aid just one driver, if he is on par with Alonso (something Massa has proved he isn’t) then they would only be shooting themselves in the foot by doing that.

      1. Alonso will stay at Ferrari unit 2017.

        1. Ask Kimi about contracts with Ferrari…
          And what will Alonso do when the cars stay bad for the next 3 years?

          1. @verstappen – Then it probably won’t be a problem for Perez. He says he wants to join a big team and mount a challenge for the championship within the next two years. If Ferrari keeps building bad cars, he won’t race for them.

    5. Well, I don’t think a seat in Scuderia is not that bad thing. of course the team would favour Alonso and Perez should maintain the gap or slower than him. but also it’s quite hard to have such regularly competitive team car(well, perhaps not great though) so it’s not a bad choice. Unless Perez decides to make a contract until 2017 like Alonso, he could have a couple of years experience in Ferrari, a very big team, and if he can show some pace during that year, switching is much easier than go straight into Mclaren or other big teams.

      1. I think Perez at Ferrari wouldn’t be a bad thing for either side. He is talented but inexperienced, he can learn extremely much in such a big team and especially from a driver like Alonso who is possibly the best out there (my opinion). Once Alonso decides it was enough for him, Perez will be the experienced one in the team and maybe get a new promising one by his side. Or Hamilton or Vettel ..

        1. @bananarama I think that’s the only viable way he could be successful at Ferrari. I can’t even see Ferrari allowing him to see if he can challenge.

  4. Progress update from Austin, as of yesterday.

    1. From that photo, Turn 1 looks like it’s going to be an absolute peach!!

    2. Looks like its finally nicely coming along. That first corner on top of the hill is really the top spot for good shots.

  5. Missed yet another caption competition. Adding to my reasoning to move overseas. Then I’d be able to go to more races AND be part of the caption competition.
    @keithcollantine any chance you could keep the caption comp open for longer? I literally went to bed and woke up to find it had been posted, run, and completed all while I was sleeping!

  6. Actually I think a seat in Ferrari is the easiest way for Perez getting into big league. Even if he should play ‘support role’ for Alonso’s champagne or be just a good point scorer but it’s so attractive option. It might not make him a world champion for Ferrari but could make him get title somewhere…

  7. Didnt rocky get back on the radio again and tell vettel to finish the race? So suddenly the brakes were fine again?

    1. And then he got on the radio again, calling “Emergency! Emergency! Stop the car now.” on the last lap, although Vettel apparently didn’t pay attention to it.

      1. Vettel said he had no radio communication IIRC.

  8. I remember someone on YouTube telling me that Perez was the typical pay-driver and Ferrari would only ever pick him just because of Carlos Slim, I’d like to see him say that again.. I have no doubts that Checo will be off to Ferrari for 2013, Massa looks to be getting worse every year. 2010, no victories (I know one was robbed from him), 2011, no podiums, 2012 so far, no points, it will get to the point that he’ll be outside of the 107% time before long.

  9. I don’t know if it’s the pearly grin, the legoman hairstyle or what, but there’s something pleasantly 70’s about Sergio Perez. Good lad, can’t wait to see him up on the podium again.

    1. I Love The Pope
      1st April 2012, 15:30

      Your “legoman hairstyle” comment is one of the best I’ve read on here in a long time. That made me smile! And so true, too!

    2. +1 for LEGOMAN!

  10. Ho.. guys…
    enough enough already… He got second place, and he didn’t win a championship. Even i ve voted for him as a “driver of the week” in F1F. And i agree he has talent. But nearly two weeks i am seeing lots n lots of news and speculation about him.. lets see what he is going to deliver in China..

    I feel i am not the only person who got annoyed. sorry.

  11. Today’s Indycar race was really good. And that was on a track that saw hardly any passing last year.

    The new car allows for close racing, and even a bit of touringcar like nudging :-) tyres degrade enough to make it interesting and its was jst so full of action. Lets just hope they stuff the idea of that push2pass button altogether, it really is not needed.

    To me, Indycar is back to being great to watch.

    1. Sadly, where I live, all the channels were either on golf or NASCAR, and the illegal live streams were hokey due to the lousy bandwidth, oh well.

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