Martin Whitmarsh not concerned about Sergio Perez’s struggles in recent races – Formula 1 news
The team principal for McLaren, Martin Whitmarsh has admitted that he is not worried about Sergio Perez’s failure to perform in recent races.
Perez currently drives for the Sauber F1 team but was confirmed by McLaren for next season’s driver line up as Lewis Hamilton will be leaving to join Mercedes. The confirmation had just come in ahead of the Japanese Grand Prix.
However, since the transfer decision, Perez has not been able to show any good performance. The driver has been dealing with incidents for the last three races. In Japan, his car suffered from a gravel incident; he finished at eleventh place in the Korean
Grand Prix while his car suffered a puncture in the Indian Grand Prix just last weekend.
However, Whitmarsh is not concerned about these recent failures and denies that the team regrets its decision regarding the driver. He insists that Perez is still going through the learning process.
“He is a young and exciting driver," explained Whitmarsh. “Exciting can be good, it can be bad. But I think he did a fantastic job to be up there [eighth] in qualifying. He has the speed, and he wants to get up there and win. But if he hasn't got something
to learn at 22, there is something wrong. I haven't spent much time with him, but [in] the time I have spent [I've found] he is very intelligent, and very ambitious. And, at the moment, he has a good level of humility.”
In the beginning of this month, Perez himself had admitted that the Formula 1 community requires you to get used to and learn many things although he insisted that he is able enough to compete against other drivers.
Sauber F1 had hired the Mexican driver from the Ferrari Driver Academy in 2011. The driver has expressed his thanks to Ferrari for introducing him in the F1 world while he is also grateful to McLaren for signing him for next year.
Whitmarsh is looking forward to getting some time with Perez before the season ends but he respects that the driver is still in contract with Sauber until the end of 2013.
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