Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Perez expects challenging weekend for Force India

Sergio Perez expects Force India to face a difficult weekend at the Spanish Grand Prix despite a strong result in Bahrain.

The Mexican scored his first points of the season courtesy of eighth place in the last race, with the Force India proving to be suited to the Sakhir circuit. A number of teams are expected to update their 2015 cars in Barcelona, however, and with Force India's main upgrade not due until the Austrian Grand Prix, Perez knows another top ten finish will be a tough ask.

“It's nice to get to Barcelona following a good result in Bahrain," Perez said. "The last race was definitely a bit of a confidence boost for everyone and we will try to keep up this momentum in Spain. At the same time we expect a more challenging weekend because the characteristics of the circuit are very different to Bahrain with a lot more high-speed corners."

Perez explains one of the bigger problems for Force India in Spain is the fact it needs to have a significant performance advantage to be able to overtake at the Circuit de Catalunya.

“As a track, Barcelona is a demanding place to drive a Formula One car, with both fast and slow sections. It’s a big test of the aero package – similar to somewhere like Sepang. Overtaking is never easy because it’s difficult to get really close to another car, so good track position really pays off. The DRS zones have made it a bit easier to overtake, but you still need to be quite a bit faster than the cars you are racing.”

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.