Three hundred races, ten defining moments
Sergio Perez’s 300th Formula 1 start is a useful moment to take stock. A career is easier to reduce to a win or a team change; Perez’s is better understood through the turns that shaped it. The question is which moments best explain the Mexican driver’s path so far.
Luis Ramírez looks back at ten of them. The milestone gives the list its occasion, but the bigger point is what those moments reveal about Perez’s career.
What stands out in Sergio Perez’s first years in Formula 1 is how often a breakthrough came with a catch: his debut points were erased, his first podium ended in a narrow defeat, and his move to a top team stalled. The setbacks matter because they show how much of his reputation was built on extracting results from difficult circumstances.
This weekend, Perez reaches 300 Formula 1 starts, joining a group that includes Michael Schumacher, Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Several early races help explain how he got there.
A debut shaped by a technical ruling
Perez’s arrival in F1 ended a 30-year gap without a Mexican driver in the championship. But his seat at Sauber looked uncertain after a poor start to his 2010 GP2 campaign. A win in Monaco’s feature race changed the picture, helping earn him a place in the Ferrari Driver Academy under Maurizio Arrivabene, alongside Jules Bianchi. Arrivabene later became Ferrari team principal.
At the 2011 Australian Grand Prix, Perez climbed from 13th to seventh while managing his tyres impressively. Then the result disappeared. Inspectors found that both Sauber rear wings exceeded the permitted mounting limit by 2mm, and both cars were disqualified. Perez had to wait until the Spanish Grand Prix to score his first official points.
Two podiums that changed his standing
On 25 March 2012, in a rain-soaked Malaysian Grand Prix, Perez pushed Fernando Alonso for the win. He led laps in the Sauber C31 and stayed in contention until a small error at the penultimate corner sent him slightly wide. Alonso escaped; Perez finished second. That result ended the “pay driver” label for many observers and gave Mexico its first F1 podium in 41 years.
Six months later, at Monza on 9 September, Perez started 12th and again turned tyre conservation into a late charge. Driving a Sauber-Ferrari, he passed Alonso with seven laps remaining to take second. Lewis Hamilton, then with McLaren, won the race. Three-time champion Niki Lauda sought Perez out on the podium and told him: “I take my hat off to you, you did an incredible job, you even surprised Alonso”.
Those results helped Perez land a McLaren seat for 2013. He had a possible route to Ferrari, but it required waiting until 2014, and Maranello offered little certainty. McLaren, meanwhile, was rebuilding after Hamilton’s departure to Mercedes. The move made sense on paper. The season didn’t.
McLaren disappointment, Force India recovery
Technical disagreements and rising friction inside McLaren coincided with a car that struggled on the new Pirelli tyres. Perez scored 49 points and finished 11th in the standings; teammate Button had 73. McLaren went through the year without a podium for the first time in years. Perez later summed it up: “Unfortunately, for several reasons, the season didn't go as we hoped and we ended up without a podium.” Calling the move a wasted opportunity misses the point: the car and team were not delivering the platform his Sauber performances had promised.
McLaren announced his departure late in 2013, leaving little time to find another seat. Force India was one of the few options. It had finished sixth in the constructors’ standings, just behind McLaren, and had a reputation for consistency. Perez quickly settled in with team owner Vijay Mallya and the squad.
In only his third race for Force India, on 6 April 2014, Perez finished third in Bahrain and held off late attacks from Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull. It was the team’s first podium since 2009. The partnership produced five podiums: Bahrain in 2014; Russia in 2015; Monaco and Europe (Baku) in 2016; and Azerbaijan in 2018. Force India also secured fourth place in the constructors’ championship in both 2016 and 2017.
6. Perez’s legal action helped keep Force India alive
Force India’s financial problems were bound up with the legal troubles facing Vijay Mallya in India over bank loans. In 2018, Sergio Perez took the team into administration after the Hungarian Grand Prix, a step that opened the way for a sale to a consortium led by Canadian businessman Lawrence Stroll. The team became Racing Point, and hundreds of factory jobs were saved.
Perez said the decision came with a personal cost: “I was asked to take that route to save 400 jobs at the factory. That was the big picture. It was a very difficult position to be in the middle of, unable to focus solely on driving.” That episode says something about the role he played beyond the cockpit: at a moment when the team faced liquidation, his intervention helped make a rescue possible.
7. Sakhir turned a lost season into a Red Bull seat
Sergio Perez, Racing Point, 1st position, contemplates on the podium
Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images
By 2020, Perez looked set to lead Racing Point into its Aston Martin era under a three-year deal with Stroll. Then Sebastian Vettel became available after leaving Ferrari, and Stroll chose the four-time world champion instead. Perez was left without a seat for 2021 even as he fought near the top five in the drivers’ standings, with Racing Point contending for third in the constructors’ championship. His prospects in Formula 1 looked bleak.
Then came Sakhir. After a first-lap collision involving Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen sent him to the back, Perez fought through the field to win his first Grand Prix. Mercedes’ pit-stop mistakes and a late puncture for George Russell shaped the result, but the comeback was his. It was also the first victory for Stroll’s team.
Red Bull was weighing Alex Albon’s future, and Christian Horner saw Perez pass Albon on track. The Sakhir drive made a powerful case for Perez’s place in the team’s second car. For a driver who had just been dropped, one standout race changed the direction of his career.
8. Abu Dhabi made Perez Verstappen’s “Minister of Defence”
Perez joined Red Bull as the support driver Max Verstappen needed in the title fight. He won in Azerbaijan and added podiums in Turkey, the United States and Mexico as the season reached its climax.
At Abu Dhabi, Perez held Lewis Hamilton behind him on tyres 21 laps old, giving Verstappen time to close a nine-second gap. The defence was firm and fair, and Verstappen’s verdict over team radio became the line that defined Perez’s role: “Checo is a legend”. The moment captured the value of his season: not every decisive contribution ends with a chequered flag.
