At first the gentle flick of the rear to the right appeared innocuous, but the seemingly gentle brush with the barriers produced damage that was anything but minor.
“I crash,” Sergio Perez muttered over team radio as his car ground to a halt at the end of Saturday’s free practice three, and already his mind was racing.
The Baku Street Circuit was an opportunity for Force India to score a solid result, but his car was badly damaged just two hours before the start of qualifying.
The Azerbaijan-hosted European Grand Prix was at risk of becoming a wasted weekend, but some impressive work from the Mexican’s engineers and the short-term pain of a five-place grid penalty for an unscheduled gearbox change had Sergio’s #11 car repaired in time for Q1.
Not one to waste his good fortune and knowing he would have a five-place handicap applied on Sunday, Perez blitzed all three qualifying sessions and put his car second fastest by the end of Q3. It was a result that exceeded even his team’s expectations.
“I think we were expecting ourselves to be strong around here, but not that good,” Perez enthused at the end of the session. “Obviously I’m still a bit angry from the mistake of this morning, but I’m very happy.”
“With the penalty I’m starting seventh – I think the team deserves more than that, and hopefully tomorrow we can put together a strong race.”
Perez didn’t blink in his quest to recover lost ground – the Force India car picked its way through the pack on its one-stop strategy, culminating in a pass on the strategically compromised Kimi Räikkönen for third place.
“I knew that the podium was possible today, but it was very hard work to get it,” he said after the race. “It’s only the eighth race and we’ve done two podiums already. It’s been an incredible year so far.”
The crash notwithstanding – but then the new circuit also caught out Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton – it was a well-judged and mature weekend from Perez, which is the sort of drive increasingly available to the Mexican’s experienced skill set but rarely attributed to him by the broader Formula One discourse.
Few expected much from Perez after he was cut loose by a McLaren in turmoil at the end of 2013. The hype surrounding his ascending star after three sensational podiums with Sauber in his sophomore 2012 season fizzled into nothing during his year at Woking. Sergio struggled to come to grips with the poor 2013 car managed by a febrile team on the cusp of an executive coup.
The impact of his hard landing reverberated through his first season with Force India in 2014, which was similarly inconsistent despite his third-round podium in Bahrain. His performance warranted a contract extension – one based on the promise of future results rather than an established record – but did little to repair his muddied reputation.
However, signing the bottom line triggered the flicking of a switch in the Mexican’s head at the dawn of his new two-year contract with Force India.
“It’s my fifth year in Formula One. It’s a crucial year for my career,” he told this writer in Australia last year.
“The objectives definitely change – when you have a second opportunity with the same team, when you get to know the people, the engineers, and the car, you are much better prepared than you were the year before.”
The confidence that drove his early-career exuberance bubbled back to the surface. He ploughed through the team’s difficult start to the season before coming alive in the second half with its new B-spec car, claiming a podium in Russia and ending the season on a high, not to mention with more points than his Le Mans-winning teammate Nico Hülkenberg.
This year confidence remains at record levels, and since the significant upgrade package at the Spanish Grand Prix pushed the car back towards the pointy end of the field Perez has again excelled, taking an excellent podium in Monaco and putting together a flawless qualifying and race combination in Azerbaijan.
So it is that even in the rumour-hungry world of Formula One speculation whispers of Ferrari’s interest in the driver it once nurtured through its junior driver academy are being taken seriously.
But there’s more than just podiums behind Perez’s reappearance on the radar of the sport’s biggest teams – more important is that he’s shown a capability for introspection and growth, both critical traits in all the best drivers.
A motivation to improve is what drove Red Bull Racing to pick Daniel Ricciardo over Jean-Eric Vergne, it’s what keeps Nico Rosberg in contention with the naturally talented Lewis Hamilton, and it’s what has turned Max Verstappen into a teenage sensation.
“You have to be open to always improving,” Perez emphasised at the beginning of last year.
“It’s not about where you start; it’s about where you end up.””
Sergio Perez’s career may be a slow burn, but in the junior formulae he’s a proven winner and in Formula One he’s an established points and podium-getter in cars from which his teammates have had far more difficulty extracting such lofty results.
Right now Perez is at Force India with a contract likely ready for his signature – but the possibilities for where the mercurial Mexican ends up are boundless.
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