Perez hints at Force India stay next season

Amidst speculation that Sergio Perez will be looking for a fresh challenge in 2017, the Mexican has hinted that he will remain at the Silverstone-based outfit next season.

Although not confirmed, Force India’s Otmar Szafnauer has reportedly said that a deal is in place for their star driver to carry on racing alongside Nico Hulkenberg next year.

When quizzed about Szafnauer’s comments, Perez said that it is not completely unbelievable as he has been expressing his satisfaction with his current team since the speculation arose.

“I’ve been saying like for the last month or so that I’m very happy where I am and that I’ve already made up my mind, so I think what Otmar says is quite correct,” he said.

“Our performances this season show that the potential is there. It was only the pros and cons with my partners, but Otmar if you said it must be true…”

Looking ahead to the Italian Grand Prix, the former McLaren driver feels that his eighth place qualification is promising but feels that they are still lacking pace compared to Williams and Haas.

“We haven’t had the pace all weekend. For some reason they seem to be quicker,” he continued.

“Haas was quicker than us today. Williams probably was marginally quicker than us. So we’re not where we would like to be.

“In the end I think we maximised the full potential with both cars which was very important. Hopefully tomorrow we can do a strong race, a strong strategy and try to get the Williams – that will be our target.

“I think in the long run we can be a bit closer to them [Williams], although the pace they showed on Friday was extremely strong so hopefully we can match them and get close to them.”