Perez encouraged to score on weak Force India track

40

Sergio Perez is encouraged by Force India’s performance in the Spanish Grand Prix on a circuit which has not suited it in the past.

Force India brought a number of upgrades to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, a circuit where it had never finished higher than seventh place. Despite a disappointing start to the season for the team, Perez matched that best result and held off the Williams of Felipe Massa, something which the Mexican driver believes bodes well for the future.

"It was a very good race and I think we managed to get the maximum result we could hope to achieve,” Perez said. “We were able to keep some very fast cars behind us and we capitalised on the accident on the first lap [between Hamilton and Rosberg] to bring home a good amount of points.

“I had to fend off Felipe in the last three laps: I was on very old tyres and he was closing in on me, but I managed to defend my position. This was pretty much the only action I had all afternoon; the rest of my race was quite lonely, which helped me look after the tyres and allowed me to defend in the final few laps.

“We had a good strategy that helped us leapfrog the Haas and brought us this good result on a track that has never been our strongest."

Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg retired with a fire at the rear of his car and he also believed he would have been fighting for points had he not been hit with another reliability issue.

"It’s frustrating not to finish another race,” Hulkenberg said. “I saw some smoke coming from the back of my car and then it developed into a fire so I had to park quickly at the side of the track. It’s a shame because I missed the chance to fight for points and we also missed out on learning more about the car in race conditions.

“Sometimes in racing you have periods when things don’t go your way, but you have to keep the faith and believe that sooner or later your luck will change. There are also some positives to take away from this weekend because we’ve made progress with the car and I think the performance will continue to improve. So we will keep working hard and come back stronger at the next one."

REPORT: Verstappen takes stunning first win as Mercedes collide

Breakfast with ... Claire Williams

Romain Grosjean column: Spain will show the real Haas

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

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.