Sergio Perez says Force India can still beat Renault, despite deputy team principal Robert Fernley saying they are unlikely to beat the French team to fourth in the championship.
Force India lead sixth in the constructors championship, 34 points behind Renault, after failing to score in the French Grand Prix.
However Perez told reporters including RaceFans today “I don’t think it’s unrealistic to think we can still beat Renault.”“If we improve in the next couple of races a bit more, the margin is not that far.”
Renault has been “the most consistent [team] and probably the benchmark right now of the midfield,” Perez admitted. “But I don’t think they’re too far [ahead]. If we’re able to speed up our rate of progress we can get them still. It’s a long season ahead of us.”
Perez said the team hasn’t got the most out of the new parts it has introduced for the VJM11 so far.
“I don’t think we maximised it,” he said. “Certainly there was good potential in it but France was not a straightforward weekend for us.”
Force India was “hurt massively with the lack of running” in France, said Perez. Wet weather disrupted final practice and Perez missed out on part of second practice after losing a wheel from his car.
“[It was] a new circuit, we probably lacked some [fundamental] set-up work. I think probably that hurt me a bit in the race.”
Perez retired from the race with a water leak but he said he has no concerns about his engine for this weekend.
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Dr. Dan (@anikale)
28th June 2018, 14:09
I wish, but I doubt.
Morten Lyngdal-christensen
28th June 2018, 14:56
Haas Will outscore them Before that Happens.. if they get R-G Going.
Garns (@)
28th June 2018, 17:02
Sorry Checo- its just NO Time to jump ship mate!
Esploratore (@esploratore)
29th June 2018, 2:24
Let’s see, 8 races out of 21 done, 62 vs 28 points.
Force india has really had ups and downs this year, they’ve not been a constant team, also because of the budget issues, renault probably had 80% higher budget than force india.
Renault on the other hand, like they said, proved to be the most consistant team in the midfield and we can expect regularly to see 2 of their cars in the top 10s, let’s say force india actually improve and consistently beat them.
Keep into account haas and mclaren could get into the points often with alonso and magnussen (and perhaps grosjean later).
Ofc some of the top cars could retire, but not considering it in general, 7th gives 6 points, 8th 4, 9th 2, 10th 1; let’s say they manage something like force india, renault, force india, renault for 8 of the remaining races, they’d get 24 points back that way, renault would be ahead of 10 points.
Let’s say in the remaining 5 races alonso and magnussen do better and steal all the 7th places, for the rest, force india, renault, force india, this would end up with force india being 5 points ahead.
So let’s say, yes, they can still beat renault, but they need a constant performance edge, they need to beat them very regularly from now on or renault already has 4th place guaranteed.
Certainly force india proved to be better than what you’d expect so far, so we’ll see.
BasCB (@bascb)
29th June 2018, 7:06
Force India did not have the money available before the season start to fully develop the car and good bits @esploratore, so now that the season got under way and they received their first FOM payments they will be bringing far more updates they had prepared but couldn’t afford to have built onto the car.
That should greatly enhance their potential, and is probably the reason why Perez is so optimistic.