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Sergio Perez walked straight back into the intrigue over his Formula 1 future and the chance of losing his Racing Point/Aston Martin seat to Sebastian Vettel for 2021 when he returned to the paddock after his COVID-19 isolation on Thursday.
But he remained bullish about his prospects of staying on, suggesting he felt “secure” and that the Vettel rumours would “go away”.
Perez missed the two Silverstone races after a positive COVID-19 test in the build-up to the British Grand Prix, but has been cleared to return to action for the Spanish GP this weekend.
Vettel’s next move after his Ferrari exit has remained the biggest open ‘silly season’ question during Perez’s absence and was the lead topic when the Mexican made his first media appearance at Barcelona.
“With the rumours of Sebastian I think there’s nothing that I can do,” said Perez.
“What I’ve heard from the team is that we all want to keep going, to continue.
“I believe it’s just a matter of time before those rumours can go away.”
Asked if he had begun any talks with other teams, Perez – who had previously said he’d been approached by one of Racing Point’s rivals when the Vettel speculation began – replied: “No, not really given that my position with the team looks quite secure and it’s the feeling that I’ve been getting.”
Perez also joked that he had found watching the Silverstone races from isolation in a Milton Keynes apartment “boring” – though the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix less so given the change in tyre compound – and said he had few question marks about his fitness going into Barcelona as he had tried to continue training as much as he could while in lockdown.
He said his coronavirus symptoms were limited to “a little bit of a headache” and “one or two days I found very tiring” but was unsure whether those feelings were products of the virus or because “you feel like that while you spend so much of your time on your own, and I couldn’t leave the room”.
The Race says
Scott Mitchell
Missing two races just when speculation over his future seemed at its most intense threatened to be a very damaging development for Sergio Perez.
He wasn’t able to state his case, meanwhile another driver not even under consideration – Nico Hulkenberg – popped onto the scene and did a very good job.
However, the reality is that Perez’s opposition for one of the two Aston Martin F1 seats next year are team-mate Stroll and Vettel. And neither covered themselves in glory in Perez’s absence.
It seemed through the first weekend, at least from afar, that Racing Point missed Perez’s input as track conditions changed and one car (Hulkenberg’s) was eliminated from set-up evaluation work so the stand-in could get up to speed.
Stroll then had a difficult race, and followed that up a week later by being outqualified by Hulkenberg.
None of this is to say that the team must therefore commit immediately to dropping Stroll, but it was about as good a scenario as Perez could have hoped for while waiting on the sidelines. It reaffirmed his value to the team as an experienced, dependable performer.
Meanwhile, his potential replacement Vettel endured a miserable double-header. He struggled in qualifying, got stuck in traffic and spun at the start of the second race, his latest unprompted error.
Ferrari didn’t exactly help his prospects with a low-downforce set-up, disrupted British GP preparations and some questionable strategy across the two weekends. But Vettel was the architect of his own downfall in race two and his confidence looks low.
Racing Point/Aston Martin need a team leader for the next phase of its F1 journey. Perez already looked like he could be exactly that – neither of the alternatives have done much to change that feeling while he’s been away.
