Force India driver believes his team are behind

Force India driver Sergio Perez doesn’t believe that his car is fast enough to lead the midfield in the Australian Grand Prix.

The team will target fourth place along with most of the field. As expected the front 3 is expected to be Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari but the midfield battle is difficult to call.

Last season Force India managed to retain 4th place in the Constructors Championship but with the gap closing in on them, Perez believes the team need to take a “good step”.

Perez said: “We definitely need a good step for the first race and hopefully that will come and we can be competitive fro then onwards.

“What we are experiencing these days is probably irrelevant because once we go to race weekends track temperatures are going to be quite different to what we’ve had so far.

“Right now it’s hard to judge where we are but certainly I don’t think we are leading the mid-pac at the moment, but I certainly always say it doesn’t matter where we start, it’s where you are in Abu-Dhabi.

“We will see in Melbourne where we are, once we bring our package but I’m very hopefully of what we are going to have for Melbourne.”

Force India didn’t have the most pleasing testing sessions in Barcelona but Perez clearly isn’t concerned.

“It’s too early to be disappointed or happy. We have to keep our heads down and working. It is going to be tough, definitely we are going to have more teams in the middle and hopefully everyone can be closer to the top.”

All attention is now fully focused on the Melbourne Grand Prix on the 25th March.