Sergio Perez may have been thrown in the deep end says Reynard Gelderblom.
Photo: Mclaren.com
Sergio Perez certainly caused a few Formula One fan’s hearts to skip a few beats during the Bahrain Grand Prix. Reynard Gelderblom sent us his thoughts on how raw, young talent is introduced to front running teams and how we can avoid such hot-headed rough-around-the edges type racing in future.
A new hope in reckless abandon
The 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix was for sure a cracker of a race. Sebastian Vettel, Kimi Raikkonen and Romain Grosjean drove their way to well deserved podium finishes. Paul Di Resta showed great heart and fight – in many ways he was my driver of the day.
For some teams, it didn’t go as planned: Mercedes didn’t deliver on their qualifying pace and by now I’m sure you’ll get shot for uttering the word “wing” in the Ferrari garage. For others, it almost ended in tears: As if McLaren doesn’t have enough issues with pace to take back to the drawing board, they’ll certainly need to address another issue that came up during the last two races – Sergio Perez.
Perez showed pace during the early part of the 2012 season and with Lewis Hamilton’s departure, he finally got his rewards when McLaren signed him as replacement. The problem is, since his podium in Monza, he’s gone right off the boil.
A promising start to the 2012 season was concluded with some silly incidents and fairly mediocre finishes. Things didn’t start off too well at McLaren either. Constantly being outdone by team mate Jenson Button brought on some questions over his head as early as the Malaysian Grand Prix… but wait, it got worse when we got to China.
In the early stages of the Chinese GP, Raikkonen became the victim of Perez weaving around excessively. Given that the damage was minimal this didn’t end up being too big an issue, but then we got to Bahrain. After having another fairly quiet first half of the race, Perez in the second half can at best be described as an utter lunatic.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a good inter-team mate rivalry but a hot-headed, hammer and nail assault is hardly what you call good sportsmanship. Granted, Perez may be starting to feel the pressure, but there are surely more suitable ways to show that you belong in a top team like McLaren.
This however does beg the question, how are future prospects being prepared for when they step up to a front running team. Didn’t we see this before? Felipe Massa was certainly a bit rough around the edges when he moved to Ferrari and I’m sure we’ll never forget Romain Grosjean during the early part of 2012. So much time and money is spent on new technology by all the teams each year, but are they making sure that the people they entrust this to are properly prepared to control it?
Red Bull will certainly claim to have the right answer with the Torro Rosso team, yet we’ve only really seen Vettel progressing to the flagship team. Perhaps this is a good time to reintroduce the third car for Friday’s second free practice session where the third driver gets an opportunity. Maybe it’s time to look at a mentoring system where young guns get to spend some time with former drivers during the race weekend. I’ve never driven an F1 car so I don’t have any real answers, but I do have some valid questions.
To me, it just looks like we’re taking tomorrow’s talent and tossing them into the deep end – like coins into a wish pond.
Reynard Gelderblom is the motorsport editor for Street Motion.
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