Sergio Perez is believed to be top of the list of potential replacements for Lewis Hamilton – and it’s being reported that the Mexican could be confirmed as early as Friday.
Perez is a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy and has tested for the Italian team.
However, Luca di Montezemolo has made it clear that he felt that the youngster was not yet experienced enough to replace Felipe Massa for 2013. If that was a power play in a game with Perez’s backers, it may have misfired if he has indeed signed for McLaren.
He emerged as a potential candidate for McLaren after his superb performance in the Italian GP.
McLaren has made some unexpected moves on the driver market in the past, most famously when it took Kimi Raikkonen from Sauber after the Finn had been in F1 for just one year.
The signings of Juan Pablo Montoya, Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button also came out of left field at times when those drivers appeared to be committed elsewhere.
Perez’s face certainly fits at McLaren. Mature beyond his years, he will be low maintenance and gel easily with Jenson Button.
And crucially he will certainly go to McLaren in conjunction with substantial funding from Mexico. Vodafone is widely believed to be leaving at the end of this season, which would even open the door to title sponsorship for TelMex.
The next question will be whether the Mexican funding also remains at Sauber, and reserve driver Esteban Gutierrez is promoted to a race seat. Without that backing Sauber could face a serious financial shortfall.
Adam Cooper F1 
Way to go Segio. This would be great for him.
I hope this happens.
If Perex were to go to McLaren, would any compensation they paid to Sauber for the loss of their driver compensate for the loss of their TelMex funding?
Better RAI
I still feel that perez is highly rated than what he is worth. Remember that all his superlative performances were when he started outside top10 & had chance to choose tyres & go reverse strategy to top teams. But with any top team you probably wouldn’t have that option & so he may become vulnerable. More over his overriding ability is how goood he is at conserving tyres & it is not known completely how much it is to do with his driving or to do with sauber design. But overall he is good driver but still not far away from handlng pressures of top team esp team like ferrari. Luca will proved right with in 6months only if he happen to move to McLaren.
I’d rather see 20 races from a pairing of JB and Michael, to be honest. A last hurrah for the V8 era. But unlikely I guess.
I bet Jaime has emailed Sauber already..