Martin Whitmarsh happy with Sergio Perez’s improved show – Formula 1 News
McLaren’s boss, Martin Whitmarsh, has praised the performances of his new recruit, Sergio Perez, who has been doing a reasonable job over the past two races of the 2013 Formula 1 season.
The Mexican driver was under immense pressure after being hired by McLaren last year. Critics believed that he will be unable to meet the expectations of the team and might have to switch to another outfit
at the end of the season.
Although Perez was confident that he would be able to absorb all pressure, he found himself in a difficult situation when the MP4-28 proved to be no match for rivals Red Bull, Ferrari, Lotus and Mercedes.
Due to this, he struggled to make an impression in the first three rounds of the championship.
However, the 23-year-old driver gained some confidence after beating team-mate, Jenson Button, to sixth place in Bahrain and then following it with a decent qualifying show in Spain, where he made it to
Q3 for the first time this year.
Whitmarsh was happy to see this improvement and said, “I sense now that he’s stepped it up; in the race before last [the Bahrain Grand Prix] he outraced Jenson and I think that was good for his confidence,
even though it wasn’t always good for my heart while watching! His Q2 performance in Spain was him stepping it up again, and that’s what he has to do.”
The McLaren team principal also added that beating a seasoned driver like Button is not an easy task at all and if Perez manages to do that with consistency, he will definitely earn a lot of respect.
The 55-year-old went onto say, “To come into a team with those pressures and a comparative lack of experience, if you’re going to be a future star, you’ve got to beat your team-mate. He’s getting stuck
into that now.”
Other than the performance of the drivers, Whitmarsh will be concerned about McLaren’s current pace, which is not even good enough to challenge the likes of Force India. The Woking based squad needs to
step up the game soon otherwise the top teams will run away in the Constructor’s battle.
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