Sergio Perez believes Force India's VJM11 requires too many compromises in order to find the right balance from the car.
In pre-season testing, the Silverstone-based team arrived with little in the way of a fully developed 2018 car. In Australia, the team brought a plethora of updates that have since transformed their performance on the track.
Despite the updates, Perez still believes there are still issues with the current car. When asked about what he feels is missing from the car, he said: "It’s downforce basically, to be able to balance our car better.
"We are struggling quite a bit with downforce so therefore we have to make too many compromises on the balance."
"I hope we can be closer than we were in Barcelona. Normally, Barcelona translates really well, what you do in Barcelona, it’s more or less what you can do on this type of circuit, sector three and we were not so competitive there.
"I hope that with a better balance, a bit more of an understanding of our issues we can be closer to be top of our category. It’s our target."
Force India currently lie seventh in the Constructors' Championship and find themselves locked in a tight battle with their rivals in the midfield.
While feeling his team are still on the back foot, the Mexican is confident his team can bounce back from a mixed start to the season and get on terms with the teams in front of them.
"I think we still have a bit of a gap," he added. "When you see in Barcelona and other races, we are lacking a bit so it will be interesting to see where we are around Monaco.
"We are really close, between Haas, Renault, McLaren, ourselves, we’re really close. Whatever we can gain on a weekend can relate straight away to the performance or final result.
"We are just looking for small margins. I still think at the moment we are probably at the back of that group but we are certainly closing up."
