Perez 'maximised every opportunity' to claim sixth

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Sergio Perez was feeling very satisfied on Sunday in Sochi. Starting from ninth on the grid, he claimed sixth place in the Russian Grand Prix.

"Sixth place feels very satisfying," he said after the race. "And with Esteban in seventh it has been a really positive day for the team.

"We’ve consolidated our fourth place in the championship. I’m seventh in the drivers’ championship. A tremendous effort from the first four races."

Perez said Force India had worked hard to make the most out of any chances that presented themselves. That included a brake failure for Daniel Ricciardo, and a late puncture for Felipe Massa.

"I think once again we were there to take every opportunity that was on the table for us," said Perez. "We were there to take from the problems for Williams and Red Bull.

"The team did a fantastic job with the strategy, waiting and not being too impatient with the stop.

"The race today was not especially exciting for me," he admitted. "I was always on my own in clean air, chasing the cars ahead and pulling away from the cars behind.

"There were no on-track battles and I could simply focus on managing my race and bringing home the points.

"[But] it's quite easy to have an incident here. All in all I think I'm pretty satisfied with the result today," he added. "We can feel very happy tonight.

Brilliant start hands Bottas maiden GP win

Spain will see a raft of upgrades to the VJM10 that could put Force India in an even stronger position.

"Hopefully now for Barcelona we can bring a stronger package that can put us a lot closer to them to give them a challenge.

"With the car that we have today, being P4 in the constructors and P7 in the drivers is an amazing job from the whole team. Hopefully now for Barcelona we can be able to move a lot forwards and be in contention to get a lot of points."

And Perez said that an important part of that plan was the consistently improving form of his young team mate Esteban Ocon.

"I think he's doing a good job. It's important as a team that he pushes me and if I do a mistake then he's set to take it.

"If you don't have a strong team mate you don't maximise the potential of the car," he pointed out. "I'm happy that he's coming up to full speed."

GALLERY: All the pictures from Sunday in Sochi

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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.