{"id":16682,"date":"2012-09-29T07:57:51","date_gmt":"2012-09-29T11:57:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=16682"},"modified":"2012-09-29T07:57:51","modified_gmt":"2012-09-29T11:57:51","slug":"perez-no-longer-a-pay-driver-whitmarsh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/perez-no-longer-a-pay-driver-whitmarsh\/","title":{"rendered":"Perez no longer a &#8216;pay driver&#8217; &#8211; Whitmarsh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sergio Perez is no longer a &#8220;pay driver&#8221;, McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh insists.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"ngg-singlepic ngg-left alignleft\" style=\"margin: 5px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/gallery\/f1-2012-rif-images\/f1-12-people\/Martin-Whitmarsh-1.jpg\" alt=\"Martin-Whitmarsh-1\" width=\"384\" height=\"256\" \/>Mexican Perez, also backed by Ferrari, started his F1 career by bringing millions in Carlos Slim-linked Telmex dollars to Sauber.<\/p>\n<p>But he is now moving to McLaren, amid speculation Telmex might eventually replace the grandee British team&#8217;s title sponsor Vodafone.<\/p>\n<p>The Telegraph, however, quotes Whitmarsh as insisting there are no &#8220;side deals&#8221; to McLaren&#8217;s Perez contract.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I did have a conversation with Carlos Slim yesterday but we have made an offer to Sergio, we are paying him well and there are no side deals,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not saying that ultimately there won&#8217;t be other fresh partners coming forward because of it but that wasn&#8217;t the motivating force,&#8221; insisted Whitmarsh.<\/p>\n<p>He is quoted by Sky Sports F1 HD channel: &#8220;He (Perez) is not a pay driver, he is being paid a lot of money.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Sponsorship was not a factor, we picked Sergio because he is the most exciting young talent in formula one.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do I believe there will be some exciting commercial opportunities in the future?\u00a0 Yes.\u00a0 Have we looked at them yet?\u00a0 No.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sergio Perez is no longer a &#8220;pay driver&#8221;, McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh insists. Mexican Perez, also backed by Ferrari, started his F1 career by bringing millions in Carlos Slim-linked Telmex dollars to Sauber. But he is now moving to McLaren, amid speculation Telmex might eventually replace the grandee British team&#8217;s title sponsor Vodafone. The &#8230;<\/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":[2078,5262,5340,491,5284,1952],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16682"}],"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=16682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16683,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16682\/revisions\/16683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}