Sergio Perez says Force India faced a "very difficult" start to 2015 which rocked his belief in the team for a spell.
Force India opted to launch a basic version of its 2015 car due to an overhaul of its aerodynamic department, with a B-spec introduced later in the year. The car was relatively uncompetitive during two days of testing at the end of pre-season, with it proving slower on its first outing than the 2014 car the team had used earlier in testing.
With a double points finish in Australia followed by two races without a point, for the team, when asked how difficult it was to retain the belief that the situation would improve, Perez replied: "It was very difficult.
"I remember now looking back – I was telling everyone in the team the other day – at Barcelona when we brought the new car, we were one second slower than the old car and the old car was not great. When we brought it, it was a big shock for everyone – we were not expecting those numbers.
"The team didn’t give up, we went to Australia, Nico finished seventh, I finished tenth – we managed to get some points and we knew that part of the year was going to be hard, so we put all our hopes on the upgrade."
However, Perez says the team delivered an impressive performance to be competitive even before the B-spec was introduced at Silverstone.
"Even without the upgrade we were fifth in the championship so I think what we managed to achieve throughout the year has been amazing for the whole team and the way the team worked has been really good.
"That gave me a lot of confidence going forward with them, I think next year is a very big year for us because we have to improve what we have done this year and that means a big step on us."
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