Sergio Perez has revealed he took an extraordinary step of placing Force India into administration in mid-2018 which saved the Formula 1 team from collapsing.
The move, which placed the Silverstone-based outfit into administration just after the Hungarian Grand Prix, was a calculated, last-resort strategy to keep the team alive, ensure its assets could be sold and ultimately preserve the lineage that would later become Racing Point before rebranding to Aston Martin.
Force India had undergone several transitions since initial launch as Jordan in 1991. The team was rebadged to Midland in 2005 and Spyker in 2007, before Vijay Mallya took ownership in 2008.
However, by 2018 Mallya was facing severe legal and financial pressures in the United Kingdom, and those troubles had begun to bleed into the team’s operations.
Suppliers were going unpaid, cash flow was strangled and Perez who raced for the team from 2014 to 2020 had not received his full salary for the year.
The situation reached a critical juncture when Sergio Perez’s manager Julian Jakobi learned that an unpaid supplier had filed a winding-up petition against Force India, and the High Court in London ordered the team into administration, setting a 90-day deadline to find a new owner.
Speaking on the High Performance Podcast, Perez, recalled the dire financial situation at the team that prompted him to intervene.
“I had no idea about law, but I was owed some money,“ Perez said. “They didn’t pay my salary for the entire year.
“We were having a bit of a delay, but then my manager told me that there was a winding-up petition from one of the suppliers that hadn’t been paid. That means they can basically shut down the company, and the whole team will lose their jobs.
”I was like, ‘wow,’ and it was said, ‘you can save it.’ We (and Sergio Perez’s manager Julian Jakobi) did the whole process to put Force India into administration before the winding-up petition came in, because if we didn’t, the team would have gone bankrupt.
“All the people, all the team [would have lost their jobs]. So at the time it was Force India, which is now Aston Martin. Aston Martin wouldn’t exist.”
Ultimately Sergio Perez saved Force India, paving the way for Lawrence Stroll’s consortium to acquire the team and rebrand to Racing Point in 2019 before relaunching as Aston Martin in 2021.
Striking a balance between legal and driving duties
Perez acknowledged how demanding it was to manage the administration process and driver duties simultaneously, recalling how he used to hold calls with lawyers just before qualifying sessions and races.
The Mexican driver also had to reassure Force India’s staff that the process was intended to protect their jobs.
“It was crazy because all of this was happening in the summer, actually, during race after race. So I remember, before going into the car, having a conversation with lawyers, not understanding it at all,“ he added.
“I remember talking to all of the staff at one of the races, and telling them, ‘Look, I’m doing it because it’s only right for everyone here. Otherwise, you guys are gonna lose everything, all your jobs and so on.’ So I ended up explaining to them how it worked, and they were a lot more calm.
“I ended up trying to be the best lawyer I could be for the team, and the best driver, trying to separate when I had to jump in the car. So I was having meetings just before qualifying.
“I remember in one it was just before qualifying, like literally, with lawyers, and then I jumped in the car. And then before the race, instead of being with the engineers, I was in some other meetings, but I was there.“
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