{"id":16674,"date":"2012-09-28T07:28:48","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T11:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=16674"},"modified":"2012-09-28T07:28:48","modified_gmt":"2012-09-28T11:28:48","slug":"mclaren-pre-empts-hamilton-news-by-announcing-perez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/mclaren-pre-empts-hamilton-news-by-announcing-perez\/","title":{"rendered":"McLaren pre-empts Hamilton news by announcing Perez"},"content":{"rendered":"

McLaren has pre-empted the announcement about Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Mercedes by confirming that Sergio Perez is joining the famous British team for 2013 and beyond.<\/p>\n

\"McLaren\"McLaren said 22-year-old Mexican Perez, the cream of Ferrari’s driver development ‘academy’ and a Sauber driver in 2011 and 2012, has inked a “multi-year” deal to be Jenson Button’s teammate.<\/p>\n

Perez had been linked with Felipe Massa’s Ferrari cockpit for 2013, but Luca di Montezemolo recently said he is not yet experienced enough for the Maranello marque.<\/p>\n

On his McLaren move, Perez is quoted as saying in a media statement: “I’m under no illusion that it is indeed a very big step, as it would be for any driver, but I’m ready for it.”<\/p>\n

Team boss Martin Whitmarsh said McLaren wishes Hamilton “well for the future”, ahead of Mercedes’ highly anticipated announcement of its 2013 driver lineup.<\/p>\n

Perez has until now been backed by Carlos Slim and Mexican telcom Telmex, but in its statement McLaren made a point of quoting title sponsor Vodafone’s chief executive Morten Lundal.<\/p>\n

Lundal said: “On behalf of all at Vodafone, I’d like to say how pleased we are that Vodafone McLaren Mercedes has signed Sergio to a multi-year deal.”<\/p>\n

And Perez added: “I’d like to thank Carlos Slim Jr, who has helped me since I was 14 years old, without whom I wouldn’t be where I am today.<\/p>\n

“I’ll do everything in my power to deliver with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes the results that he and I have been working so hard and so long to achieve together.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

McLaren has pre-empted the announcement about Lewis Hamilton’s switch to Mercedes by confirming that Sergio Perez is joining the famous British team for 2013 and beyond. McLaren said 22-year-old Mexican Perez, the cream of Ferrari’s driver development ‘academy’ and a Sauber driver in 2011 and 2012, has inked a “multi-year” deal to be Jenson Button’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,5340,491,5284,1952],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16674"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16674"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16675,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16674\/revisions\/16675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}