Perez: My best season so far

Sergio Perez has billed 2017 as his “best season” in Formula 1 as he heads into round 10 of the championship sixth in the standings.

The Force India driver has scored in seven of the opening nine grands prix to bring his tally up to 50 points.

And although it could have been more were it not for a collision with his team-mate in Azerbaijan, he reckons 2017 has been his “best” season ever.

“I think I have stepped up. I have been in very good form with qualifying and race pace. I’m getting stronger and stronger,” Perez told reporters.

“I think it’s my best season so far. It has been a good year up to now.

“At the beginning [in testing] we were one of the slowest teams and looking back the team has done a perfect job.

“It has been a tremendous season but we should have much more points, especially with the Baku incident. That should have been a podium and in Monaco missing out on seventh.

“In the midfield, we have been really consistent track to track and pretty much dominating that battle at the moment.

“Although Max [Verstappen] has had some reliability issues, I also have had a couple of bad results and it is nice to be higher in the championship.

“P6 in the standings, we would never have thought [it possible].”