Sergio Perez makes his Formula 1 comeback with the Cadillac team in 2026, and will take on his 10th teammate in the form of Valtteri Bottas.
The Mexican has often had a difficult relationship with teammates, with the last one ending spectacularly badly ‘after he was consistently outraced by Max Verstappen at Red Bull.
While things never boiled over between Verstappen and Perez on track, they did get tense behind the scenes as the Mexican struggled to bring in the results.
It is not the first time things turned sour between Perez and a top team, with his tenure at McLaren coming to an end after just one season, after a difficult start.
Jenson Button details how Sergio Perez relationship ‘didn’t start well’ at McLaren
Off the back of a competitive 2012 season, McLaren came into 2013 with high hopes, even though they had lost Lewis Hamilton to Mercedes.
Perez was selected as his replacement, having impressed at Sauber the previous year with podiums in the Malaysian, Italian, and European Grands Prix.
However, things got off to a frosty start with teammate Jenson Button, who felt Perez didn’t show the same level of respect that other rookies normally do for the established drivers.
“At the risk of sounding like a retired Sergeant Major, there is such a thing as paying your dues. Sergio’s problem is that he came in like a bull at a gate,” wrote Button in his book, Life to the Limit.
“I’d been around for years at this point, and I could remember when all this was fields and a time when new drivers had a lot more respect than the older ones. The fact is that our relationship didn’t start well for those reasons, and it got worse before it got better.”
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Sergio Perez and Jenson Button collide at 2013 Bahrain Grand Prix four races into partnership
Perez was keen to make an impression in the opening rounds at McLaren, given he was supposed to be replacing their golden boy Hamilton, who was embarking on his journey with Mercedes.
But it took four rounds before Perez and Button collided on track at the race in Bahrain, where the Mexican would cause headaches for McLaren in their car that was already underperforming.
During the early days of the high-degradation Pirelli tyres, teams would often stop multiple times in a race. Button managed to leapfrog Perez in the early stages of the race, but a first attempt to pass the Mexican was met with a block down the high-speed start/finish straight.
Button would eventually get the move done down into Turn 1, but that was not the end of their skirmish. The pair were battling over fifth place later in the race when Perez hit the back of Button’s rear tyre, breaking off parts of his front wing as they approached Turn 4.
Button voiced his frustration over team radio and requested his McLaren team to “calm him down” in reference to Perez, after their battle appeared to hinder both their progress.
Perez went on to finish in sixth place, while Button fell to 10th, having needed to make an extra pit stop due to excessive tyre wear.
McLaren duo ‘clear the air’ after Perez blamed for being ‘overly aggressive’
In the aftermath of the incident, McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh sat both drivers down to discuss the incident, with Button later stating on social media that the duo had “cleared the air.”
Perez was blamed for being “overly aggressive” by Button, who accused the Mexican of “wheel-banging” in interviews with the TV media.
Whitmarsh felt the pair lost too much time fighting each other on track, which in turn impacted their final result.
As the season went on, things would cool down between the pair, in part due to their disappointing results and unfulfilled potential of McLaren’s 2013 challenger.
With Kevin Magnussen waiting in the wings in their Young Driver Programme, McLaren would change their driver lineup again in 2014, with Perez forced to find refuge at Force India.