that's all due to his ties with Toto and the fact he may still manage him?
has raced in parts of 8 full seasons and finished in the top 10 of the WDC once, in his first full time season. even then Checo beat him by 13 points. was 2017 the pink MB era of Force India?
he finished behind his teammate in 16 (partial season), 17, 18, was out of F1 for 2 years, got smoked by Danny Ric in 20, finished behind Alonso in 21, finished ahead of Alonso by 11 points exclusively because Alonso had 5 DNFs, finished behind Gasly in 23 and likely finishes behind him in 24 as well.
Dude has less than no business at MB. if you can only beat your teammate once in 8 tries you should be out of the sport. he's Zhou Guanyu, except older, more cancerous to his team, and brings less/no sponsorship dollars.
if we are talking about guys who don't deserve a seat based on their results he's right there w/ KMag, Sargent, Zhou, etc.