McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh has revealed that he is trying to help Sergio Perez find a seat for 2014 after they chose not to take up his contract extension.
Whitmarsh denies that Perez did a bad job and is therefore not worthy of a seat at McLaren or anywhere else, but says the potential shown by Kevin Magnussen was too good to turn down.
In an effort to help Perez find a seat, Whitmarsh has recommended him to a number of teams and denies their late driver decision has harmed the Mexican’s chances of staying in the sport.
“I am trying to help him get a drive,” he said. “People say our decision was terribly late, but what I have said to him is to stand back from it a bit.
“I’ve told him the Ferrari seats have gone, the same with Mercedes, Red Bull and Toro Rosso, and in truth he wasn’t in the frame for any of those so he hasn’t lost a seat.
“At the time Williams had a seat, but that has now gone, but there is a Lotus seat, and one at Sauber, Force India, Caterham and Marussia.
“So there is no seat closed to him and we can have no accusations we made the decision too late. I have rung Force India and I have rung Lotus. They both do a good job and I have recommended him because he deserves to be in Formula One.”
McLaren have taken a big chance by signing a rookie driver, something a top team hasn’t done since 2007 when Lewis Hamilton was signed by the Woking team.
Whilst Whitmarsh attempted to get Magnussen in at another team to give the Dane experience, he ultimately had to take that chance himself and that cost Perez his seat.
“I would rather say we saw such great potential in Kevin that we decided to sign Kevin. It was not about what Checo did wrong. What Checo did wrong was that Kevin existed. Kevin was part of our programme,” he added.
“If you go up and down the pit lane and speak to the knowledgeable people they will say Kevin is the most exciting young driver not in F1. Now I went up and down the pit lane [to speak to people about signing Magnussen] and no one wanted to do it, so we went for it.”
