Perez's report card at McLaren

Sergio Perez's McLaren future is being evaluated by the team, and with good reason. As well as the interest in Fernando Alonso for next year and beyond, McLaren is understood also to be considering other alternatives.

While the Mexican's performances this season could not be described as bad, he has perhaps been a little disappointing compared with team-mate Jenson Button.

With Honda on the horizon in 2015 and McLaren determined to ensure it has the strongest possible line-up, Perez's report card to date remains unconvincing.

QUALIFYING PACE

Perez has outqualified Button only five times out of 13. Saturday was always going to be the key battleground in the intra-team battle. With Button regarded as a good (but not great) qualifier, this is an area where Perez needs to do better.

The main problem is not necessarily his speed, but the ability to deliver a key lap. Button excels in judging evolving track conditions, knowing how hard to push and in adapting set-up, which often allows him to leave Perez behind in qualifying.

In Singapore, Perez was faster than Button during his morning qualifying simulation, but slipped behind him in both Q1 and Q2. He ascribed this to a mistake with set-up, which left him five places behind his team-mate on the grid. This pattern has been repeated too often.

Perez has reached Q3 only five times, compared to Button's 10, meaning he has too often been playing catch-up in races.

RACE PACE

Perez's race performances have been similar to Button's © LAT

The Singapore GP was typical of Perez's season. After being outqualified comfortably by Button, his race performance was very similar. He ended the first lap two places behind and finished within half-a-second, showing his race pace to be similar.

But while this is a decent level of performance, he has only finished ahead of Button twice in the 12 races in which both have been classified finishers. Those races were Bahrain, where Perez claimed his best finish of the year in sixth after wheelbanging with Button, and Canada where neither scored points after McLaren grossly over-estimated tyre degradation.

After gaining a reputation for good tyre management during his time at Sauber, he has occasionally struggled with that this year, which has sometimes compromised his strategy.

TECHNICAL

Perez is still only in his third season as a grand prix driver after spending the previous two years at Sauber. Inevitably, he falls short of the level of technical knowledge that team-mate Button is able to demonstrate.

But while McLaren has made allowances for the 23-year-old, there are concerns that he is not assimilating information as quickly as he should be. Privately, some at McLaren have expressed frustration that Perez has not gained sufficient depth of understanding of the car as quickly as was hoped.

This is, in itself, not a compelling argument for dropping him. Button is the most experienced driver on the grid and Perez cannot not be expected to be at his level. By signing a third-year driver, McLaren should have factored in what would be a steep learning curve.

CONSISTENCY

Perez has been aggressive on track © XPB

McLaren is likely to have been more convinced by Perez if his progress along his learning curve had been more smooth. Instead, his performances on any given weekend have fluctuated.

Whether they have varied more than you would expect for a driver in Perez's situation is open to debate. But what has concerned McLaren are the occasional mistakes. In China, for example, he crashed in the pit entry during FP1. From there, his weekend spiralled out of control and he was both slow and error-prone.

In response to criticism from the team, he adopted a more 'elbows-out' approach in Bahrain, upsetting Button and Fernando Alonso along the way. He was also ultra-aggressive in Monaco, culminating in his clash with Kimi Raikkonen that ultimately led to Perez's retirement.

A change to his management, dropping long-time family friend Adrian Fernandez, is understood to be aimed at creating a support group around Perez to allow him to better focus and deliver more consistently.

WHAT NOW?

The jury is still out on Perez. His performances during the season have been better than a glance at the results would conclude, but there have not yet been compelling signs that he is evolving into a driver worthy of one of F1's prized seats.

For McLaren to axe him in favour of a driver like Alonso makes sense, but having made the decision to take him on in the first place it would be logical to give Perez a second season to build on what he has learned this year. There have been enough positive signs to say that after a year's experience at McLaren, he might be able to perform consistently at Button's level.

The question, though, is whether that is enough for McLaren, which likely sees Button as the ideal support act to an Alonso, Hamilton or Sebastian Vettel.

THE VERDICT

MARTIN WHITMARSH

McLaren is still evaluating Perez © XPB

"Checo has come into a team with a very high benchmark in Jenson Button. He has got someone who is consistently quick, someone who has got a decade more experience than him. It's not easy coming into a team and beating someone like Jenson who doesn't often make mistakes, gets it right, is quick, knows how to work with the team very well.

"Checo has come a long way in learning. He has set himself ambitious targets, he will want to go further, we want him to go further. This is a year of learning for him. I am sure we haven't seen the best of him yet. I am sure he strives to be up there and he wants to beat Jenson, clearly. That's a goal that he has, which is quite a good and legitimate goal."

SERGIO PEREZ

"I have to say that I am not happy with my performance at all. The car and the year have been very difficult, we are still learning about the car so it makes things difficult. In Singapore I went from being P7 in practice three, looking quite good, and we went a little bit in the wrong direction, we lost two tenths and we are P14.

"My season looks worse on paper than it has been in terms of speed, but I know very clearly that I have to improve and I am working to improve because once we get the car we have to be right in every single detail. This year, we haven't been maximising the full potential. Even though the car has been not there, we haven't been good enough all together to maximise every single detail. That's very important."

BUTTON vs PEREZ

* Excludes unrepresentative Australian GP