Sergio Perez in profile
Last Updated: 19/01/17 2:31pm
Sergio Perez enjoyed the best season of his career in 2016 with the Mexican's star firmly back in the ascendancy.
F1 career obituaries were written for Perez after a bruising 2013 spent at McLaren but a move to Force India has proved mutually beneficial for both parties with driver and team reaping the rewards.
Well-earned podiums in Monaco and Baku in 2016 took Perez's F1 tally to seven and helped Force India achieve a best-ever placing of fourth in the Constructors' Championship.
With Nico Hulkenberg moving to Renault to be replaced by the promising, but youthful, Esteban Ocon for 2017, Perez is now Force India's obvious team leader.
He only turns 27 in January but the Mexican's eloquence off the track is back up by a maturity on it which has steadily developed since his F1 debut with Sauber in 2011.
After a solid debut year, it was Perez's second season in which he started to catch the eye of the grid's big guns with giant-killing drives to second in Malaysia, third in Canada and second once again at Monza.
Despite anticipation that Ferrari would come calling for a driver who was at that time on their academy programme, it was McLaren who swooped for 2013 after learning of Lewis Hamilton's defection to Mercedes.
But as McLaren struggled with a difficult car, Perez did as well, only finishing in the top five once all season next to the more consistent Jenson Button, who he did at least outqualify over the year.
Rescued by Force India for 2014, Perez almost immediately repaid Vijay Mallya's faith in him by delivering the team's first podium finish in five years in Bahrain, the Mexican's achievement all the more noteworthy given he had to pass Hulkenberg along the way.
Perez was outscored by his new team-mate in 2014 but emerged on top in both 2015 and 2016, scoring three more podiums to Hulkenberg's none.
'Best of the rest' behind the Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari drivers last year - can Perez and Force India muscle their way into more regular front-running contention in 2017?
You'd certainly be foolish to write Sergio off.