Pérez gives Force India their last F1 podium

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On 29 April 2018, Sergio Pérez crossed the line third at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix in Baku and gave Force India their sixth Formula 1 podium. It was also, though nobody knew it at the time, their last. Within months, the team that had spent a decade punching comprehensively above its weight would be placed into administration and emerge under new ownership with a different name. The podium in Baku was the final entry in a chapter that deserved a better ending than the one it got.

The race that gave them everything

The 2018 Azerbaijan Grand Prix was chaotic in the way that Baku reliably produces, and chaos had always suited Force India and Pérez particularly well. The circuit’s combination of long straights, tight walls and unpredictable safety car periods rewarded teams who could manage tyres intelligently, react quickly to changing conditions and keep their cars on the track when others were finding barriers. Force India were very good at all three.

Pérez had made a career out of extracting maximum results from machinery that was not the quickest in the field. His ability to manage tyres across a long stint, to read a race as it developed and to place himself in the right position when the race reorganised itself around safety cars or retirements was among the most undervalued skill sets in the paddock. In Baku, those skills found a stage built for them.

The race also benefited from the chaos inflicted on the field by Verstappen and Ricciardo’s collision, which removed two Red Bull drivers from a race they might otherwise have finished ahead of Pérez. Lewis Hamilton won from Kimi Räikkönen, with Pérez completing the podium in a result that rewarded both his own composure and Force India’s strategic competence across a difficult afternoon.

What Force India had become

Force India’s story was one of the more improbable in modern Formula 1. The team that Vijay Mallya had acquired in 2008, rebranded from the collapsed Spyker operation, had no particular reason to expect the trajectory it achieved. The early years were difficult, the resources were limited and the gap to the front of the field was wide.

What changed the team’s fortunes was a combination of shrewd technical leadership under Andy Green, a genuinely talented driver pairing in Pérez and Nico Hülkenberg and a commercial model that extracted performance from every pound spent with an efficiency the bigger teams rarely needed to consider. The VJM cars became known for their aerodynamic quality and their ability to work tyres well, and the team built a reputation for punching considerably above their weight class.

Podiums had come to Force India through Pérez before Baku. His second place at the 2012 Malaysian Grand Prix while still driving for Sauber had shown his capability, and his results with Force India demonstrated that capability consistently over several seasons. Hülkenberg had contributed strong results too, though a podium finish eluded the German across his entire Formula 1 career, one of the sport’s more striking statistical anomalies.

The sixth podium in context

Baku was the sixth podium Force India had accumulated as a constructor, a total that spoke to the consistency of their overperformance relative to resources. For a team operating on a fraction of the budget available to Mercedes, Ferrari or Red Bull, six podiums represented a remarkable return on investment and a testament to what technical intelligence and operational discipline could produce when the financial constraints were acute.

The constructors’ championship position that Force India regularly achieved, finishing fourth in both 2016 and 2017, was the clearest measure of that overperformance. They were regularly ahead of Renault, McLaren and other teams with considerably greater financial firepower, a fact that generated both admiration and, in certain quarters, quiet discomfort about what the midfield’s established names were doing with their larger resources.

The collapse

The financial difficulties that had been gathering around Force India through 2017 and into 2018 came to a head during the summer of 2018. The team’s cash flow problems became critical, with suppliers and staff owed significant sums, and in July a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll moved to acquire the operation through an administration process.

The team re-entered the championship as Racing Point Force India for the remainder of 2018, with the Force India name retained temporarily for commercial reasons before disappearing entirely. The following season they became Racing Point, and by 2021 the project had been rebranded again as Aston Martin, with substantial new investment and significantly different ambitions.

The people who had built Force India into a consistent top-five constructor were largely scattered by the change of ownership and direction. The institutional knowledge, the culture and the particular identity of the team dissolved in ways that a simple rebrand could not preserve.

Pérez and the team that shaped him

For Pérez, Force India had been the platform on which his Formula 1 career was rebuilt after a difficult year at McLaren in 2013. He had joined Force India in 2014 and spent five seasons there, becoming the team’s most important driver and its most consistent points scorer. The relationship between the Mexican and the team was genuinely close, built on mutual reliance and a shared experience of achieving things that larger teams took for granted.

Sergio Pérez Mendoza

• Races (starts):283
• Wins:6
• Podiums:39
• Pole positions:3
• Fastest laps:12
• Driver of the Day:14
• World titles:0
• Points (total):1638

Data source: F1DB (GitHub)

His departure when the team collapsed into administration was not straightforward. Pérez was among the creditors owed money by the old entity, and his transition into the Racing Point structure carried the particular awkwardness of a driver watching the team he had helped build disappear legally even as the cars continued to appear on the grid.

The Baku podium, taken that April afternoon, was the last time Pérez stood on the top step in Force India colours. It was a fitting final image: a quick car, an intelligent race, a result that defied what the budget should have allowed. That had always been the Force India story, and Baku 2018 closed it with exactly the kind of result that had defined it.

FAQ

How many Formula 1 podiums did Force India achieve in total?
Force India took six World Championship podiums across their history, with Sergio Pérez responsible for the majority of them.

What happened to Force India after the 2018 season?
The team was placed into administration during the 2018 season and acquired by a consortium led by Lawrence Stroll. It was renamed Racing Point for 2019 and subsequently rebranded as Aston Martin from the 2021 season onwards.

Did Sergio Pérez stay with the team after it became Racing Point?
Yes. Pérez remained with the team through the Racing Point years, leaving at the end of 2020 when he was replaced by Sebastian Vettel as part of the transition to the Aston Martin identity. He subsequently joined Red Bull Racing for 2021.

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