Sergio "Checo" Perez a grand prix winner at 190th start. Photo / Supplied
Mexico has waited 50 years to celebrate another Formula 1 victory by a driver from its country, but that wait is over following a fairytale win by Sergio "Checo" Perez in the Shakhir GP.
The last Mexican to win a grand prix, and in fact the only one until now, was Pedro Rodriguez, who won the 1967 German GP and the 1970 Belgian GP to become a national hero, but was tragically killed in July 1971 in a sports-car race.
Mexico's new racing hero has had to wait 190 races to win his first grand prix. It is a dream come true for Perez who joined F1 in 2011 with Sauber and the following year twice achieved what was his best result in F1, second place in both the Malaysian GP and Italian GP. His best championship result in his 10 seasons in F1, this season aside, is seventh, but in a year when he has been a victim of coronavirus, missing two races, he is now comfortably fourth in the driver's championship.
Ironically in July he learnt that Racing Point were replacing him with Sebastian Vettel for 2021, even though he had a contract extension until the end of the 2022 season.
Buying Perez out of his contract is a decision you can blame on the team's majority shareholder, Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll, who naturally has kept his son Lance in the driver's seat and sacrificed Perez.
But the affable Mexican may have the last laugh, as it is an open secret that he is vying for a place in the Red Bull team for the seat currently occupied by Alex Albon. The latter was given three races to prove he is worthy of retaining the drive. He lucked in to third place in the Bahrain GP at Perez's expense when the latter had an engine let go when running in third.
Albon eventually finished sixth in Sakhir thanks to a botched double-stacked pitstop by the Mercedes team for its drivers George Russell and Valtteri Bottas, who were headed for another Mercedes 1-2 finish.
Russell, a Williams driver, was brought in to replace seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton, who contracted coronavirus the day after winning the Bahrain GP, a race that will forever be etched in FP1 folklore because of Romain Grosjean's miraculous survival of a crash into the metal barrier that split his Haas racer in two, rupturing the petrol tank and causing a massive fireball.
Grosjean was able to return to the scene of his near exit from life, yet alone F1, to describe his 28-second escape from the inferno with just burns to his hands, singing the praises of the halo device that saved his life.
He and teammate Kevin Magnussen are being replaced by new F2 Champion Mick Schumacher, and Nikita Mazepin for 2021, so Grosjean will be unable to finish off his F1 career by driving in the Abu Dhabi GP next week.
His replacement for this race was Pietro Fittipaldi, the son of former F1 and Indycar driver, Christian Fittipaldi, and the grandson of two-time world champion Emerson Fittipaldi. The latter's brother, Wilson, was also an F1 driver. As impressive as the story of three generations of Fittipaldis racing in F1 is, the bigger story was Russell, a Mercedes driver who has outdriven the poor performing Williams' car, especially in qualifying.
Going head-to-head with Bottas gave the team a chance to evaluate both drivers. Bottas beating Russell was expected, but the latter showed that Bottas is not much more than a journeyman, on a par with past number two drivers like Rubens Barrichello, Mark Webber and David Coulthard.
Although Bottas took pole for the race, it was only by two-hundreths of a second from Russell, and then he lost the race to the first corner and was behind Russell for most of the race.
At the third corner on the track shortened from the one used for the Bahrain GP itself, Perez was hit from behind as he took to the apex of the corner, by the late braking Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, and spun around, dropping to 18th place.
Max Verstappen in trying to avoid that collision, had nowhere to go except into the barrier, followed in by Leclerc.
Two of the pre-race favourites were eliminated on the spot. Leclerc later suggested magnanimously that it was probably more his fault than Perez's and the race stewards agreed, giving him a three-place grid penalty for the season finale in Abu Dhabi.
As Perez was making his way up through the field, Russell, car number 63, was looking just like Hamilton's car number 44, easily containing Bottas and heading for his first victory and first points in F1.
But the racing gods had other ideas. A botched double stack in the pits under a safety-car intervention dropped Russell and Bottas back to P4 and P5 respectively. Russell was mistakenly given Bottas' tyres and had to re-pit, while Bottas was put on used tyres. Russell overtook Bottas and was soon second, and chasing Perez, when he had to pit for a fourth time with a puncture, to eventually finish ninth, one place behind Bottas.
Russell had led for 63 of the 87-lap race only to see his chances of winning evaporate with an unfortunate puncture, and he took to Instagram to explain his frustration.
"Gutted. Absolutely gutted. It just wasn't meant to be tonight but I'm proud of the job we did out there. We'll get our opportunity again. Congrats to @SChecoPerez. Nobody deserves a win more than him. - George Russell (@GeorgeRussell63) December 6, 2020."
While there was much sympathy for Russell, there were tears of joy for Perez from almost everyone else in the F1 paddock, especially the Racing Point team that has faced controversy by being dubbed the 'Pink Mercedes' and replacing Perez in the team with Vettel, given he had actually paid the wages of team members when the team, known as Force India, went into administration in 2018.
Racing Point has its origins in the Jordan GP team, whose last win was the 2003 Brazilian GP with Giancarlo Fisichella at the wheel.
Jordan became Midland F1 Racing, then Spykar, and Force India in 2008. It may have been a 17-year wait for the team to return to victory lane, but for Perez, it is a dream come true despite coronavirus, losing his drive, yet achieving his best results in a 10-year F1 tenure.
"I'm a bit speechless, I hope I'm not dreaming because I've dreamt for so many years of being in this moment," he told interviewer David Coulthard.
"Ten years - 10 years it took me, after the first lap the race was again gone, same as last weekend but it was all about not giving up, recovering, going for it, just making the best we possibly could," Perez said.
"This season the luck hasn't been with us but we've finally got it and I think we won on merit, the Mercedes had some issues, but I think in the end my pace was strong enough to have held George who had a fantastic race today."
Understandably now that he is finally a grand prix winner, Perez was asked about his future in F1, given he is currently out of a drive.
"It just gets me a bit more peaceful with myself, to be honest," he replied.
"Whatever happens is not so much in my hands at the moment, but I want to keep going so if I'm not on the grid next year, I'll be back in '22."
Esteban Ocon, who finished second for Renault, his first podium, like Perez shed a tear or two of joy with his success and can relate to Perez's situation of being without a drive.
"I know well, know well how he feels," Ocon, who was a teammate of Perez at Force India from 2017-2018 and lost the drive to Lance Stroll to sit out 2019, said.
"I'm glad that Sergio is obviously getting the result, you know? To show everybody that he deserves to be in Formula 1. He's one of the top guys out there and he can't be left outside. There's no … it would not be normal.
"But sometimes the sport is like that, unfortunately, and you don't end up in the best situations."
It is ironic that Lawrence Stroll should now say, "Checo has been a fantastic asset and he's been an asset for this team before I've arrived.
"He most definitely proves every weekend that he deserves to be in a car next year and I hope he's in that Red Bull."
If Red Bull are smart they will sign Perez, or maybe even Russell, given Mercedes prefer Bottas.
Wolff posted this after the race:
Toto: "It's not going to be @GeorgeRussell63's last attempt to win a race, this is just the beginning of a fairy-tale that didn't work out today and I would say a new star is born."
But then added: "He's a William's driver, and is signed up to Williams and our driver line-up is Valtteri and Lewis. So, I don't see this as a realistic situation at that moment of time. [2021]"
Wolff could probably save $38 million by signing Russell for $2m instead of renewing Hamilton's contract for $40m plus, and get a driver just as fast, albeit much less experienced. Russell's performance proves that Bottas is not good enough and Mercedes should pay Bottas off and hire Russell, although Hamilton won't like that.
But Verstappen was right to suggest 90 per cent of the drivers on the grid could win in that car which maybe makes Hamilton look greater than he is. It will not be a bad thing if Hamilton has not recovered in time to drive this weekend, so the new star and the resurrected star, can shine again.