Sergio Perez believes Racing Point’s performance during Formula 1’s Russian Grand Prix proves it is back in contention for overall midfield honours.
Racing Point has struggled for pure pace at stages this year, accepting that it was playing catch-up due to its mid-2018 takeover and the approach it had to take at that stage of its existence.
It began 2019 with a ‘vanilla’ car but introduced a sequence of upgrades across recent races, culminating in a new front wing at the last event in Singapore.
Perez started from 11th position but made gains early on – profiting from the first lap clash involving Romain Grosjean and Daniel Ricciardo – and overhauled Kevin Magnussen to take seventh.
“It was a fantastic race, I think one of my best races that I can remember, just perfect, everything, the start, when to push, when not to push, strategy-wise,” said Perez.
“Probably we were a bit unlucky with the Safety Car timing and we lost there, but we managed to recover, and especially to hold off the people with fresher rubber, and that was key, we worked hard for it.
“I think we are back in the mix with the Renaults and McLarens, so hopefully the next five races we can be on a run.”
Perez added that Racing Point has “done some good progress” with the respective update packages that it has introduced in recent events.
“Since Singapore I think we’ve closed the gap but we know we have plenty of work to do, especially Saturdays.”
Perez has now scored points at three of the last four grands prix, having previously endured a sequence of eight races without taking a single top 10 finish.
