“To be honest my team is Barcelona, but I like Manchester United in England
because of Chicharito. He was always a player who fought really hard, who
never gave up. He never had things easy in his career, a bit like me. For a
Mexican to achieve what he has achieved is incredible.”
Pérez is not doing so badly himself. His second place in Malaysia this year
made him the first Mexican to feature on the podium since Pedro Rodríguez in
1971. But the more impressive fact was that he did it from 10th on the grid
driving a Sauber. Since then he has delivered two more stunning drives, both
from outside the top 10, to finish on the podium.
Most of the paddock assumed that Ferrari, to whom Pérez was attached via their
academy programme, would ease the underperforming Felipe Massa aside for
their hot young property. Instead, the Italian team’s president Luca di
Montezemolo ruled out a move, saying the Mexican lacked the “necessary
experience” .
That call was made all the more interesting when McLaren proceeded to swoop
after Hamilton defected to Mercedes. Mercedes, too, are understood to have
been preparing a deal for Pérez had Hamilton opted to stay at Woking.
Do Ferrari know something that McLaren and Mercedes do not? Did Fernando
Alonso not want Pérez alongside him at Maranello? Pérez is coy on the
subject.
“I was never really an option for Ferrari and they were never an option for
me,” is all he will say. “It is difficult right now. I think they are happy
with Felipe. He’s a very good driver, a proven driver as well. I’m not yet a
proven driver.”
Clearly he is proven enough for McLaren. Pérez denied in Singapore two weeks
ago that the Woking team had made any approach but he admits now that he was
aware of their interest “for two or three months”.
“The negotiations started a long time ago,” he says. “It never distracted me
though; completely the opposite. It just motivated me to do my best, to keep
showing McLaren that they were making the right call if they chose to take
me.”
Whether they have made the right call remains to be seen. McLaren did a fine
job last week of presenting their new signing as a coup, lauding Pérez as
the “best young talent in Formula One”. But there is no escaping the fact
that he represents a gamble, albeit one with plenty of potential and
sponsors with deep pockets.
Pérez, who hails from a motorsport background – his father was a former
Mexican F3 champion and his elder brother raced in Nascar – says he has
always had to fight to prove himself. “It hasn’t been easy,” he says. “We
are not a rich family. I always had to find sponsors and if I don’t do well
then I could lose my entire career. I had to leave my family at a very young
age and move to Germany [to compete in Formula BMW].
“I did not have a lot of money so I went to live in a restaurant. When I look
back it was a really difficult time. I was just staying there in a tiny town
in Bavaria called Vilsbiburg in the middle of nowhere.”
Pérez also spent three years in Oxford (“one of my favourite places; I would
like to live there again”) while competing in British F3 and GP2. “I may be
just 22 but I have given my life to my sport,” he adds. “Maybe for a
European guy it is easier but it means that I don’t see my family for a
year. As a Mexican I always like to have my family around.”
On an estimated £7 million per year at McLaren, Pérez can afford to fly his
family around the world with him these days. He has his mother and his
sister with him this weekend.
Whether Carlos Slim’s billions will follow him to McLaren is still unclear; or
the Jose Cuervo tequila girls who host Friday night parties at Sauber’s
European motorhome, for that matter. Pérez is not losing sleep over any of
it.
He says he is simply excited to visit the space-age McLaren Technology Centre
and to work with Jenson Button (“he seems like a very cool guy”). In the
meantime, he is more concerned with signing off in style at Sauber.
“I would be disappointed if I don’t get to win before I leave here,” he admits
. “We have done everything else. Third place, second place twice … Suzuka
should be a good track for us.”
A Sauber win this weekend? Really? “Why not? I would never have expected at
the beginning of the year that I would end up at McLaren. Always the step
was going to go to Ferrari but everything changed. Life sometimes takes you
where you never expect.”
He pauses. “It is the best opportunity of my life. I will not waste it.”