Perez: We need both cars as strong as possible

Friday, 14 December 2018 at 19:15

Sergio Perez orchestrated the downfall of financially strapped Force India so that it could emerge from the ashes to become the well-backed Racing Point outfit led by billionaire Lawrence Stroll with the intention of providing 20-year-old Lance with a decent race car in the top flight.

Clearly the team has been bought and will be built to progress Stroll junior's career, thus inevitably one has to question what the second driver in the team can really expect in such an environment where nepotism will prevail.

Perez was asked by Reuters if he had any fears of being compromised, when he teams up with Stroll in 2019, to which he replied, "I don’t think so. It’s in the interests of everyone, including the team owners that this team is a successful team."

"The investment that they’ve done, it’s successful, so for that we need both cars as strong as possible. We both have to work very hard, we both have to work together to bring the team as forward as possible. We are a team now and we just have to work like that."

Stroll's arrival in the team meant that highly rated Esteban Ocon was shown the door, the Mercedes backed driver was quicker than Perez in qualy but in races the Mexican's experience allowed him to beat the young Frenchman by 13 points in the championship standings.

Perez acknowledged, “In qualifying, he probably had the upper hand, although the gap between us in qualifying is less than a tenth, he was more often in front in qualifying than me, but I think the gap in the races was bigger than in qualifying."

“In the races I did the biggest difference, always on pace, the pace was looking a bit stronger. It was very close again, but I think he was slightly better in qualifying, and I was quite a bit better in the race,” explained Perez,

The 28-year old will compete in his ninth F1 season when he lines up on the grid next year in Australia for the first race on 17 March, the occasion of his 156th grand prix start.