Sergio Perez is optimistic about the potential of the new Racing Point after his first one-and-a-half days of testing this week.
The Mexican had the RP20 to himself on Thursday in Barcelona and again featured strongly, finishing second after being pipped by Kimi Raikkonen in the final hour.
So far this week, all the talk around Racing Point has gravitated around the similarities between its new car and last year’s Mercedes, with whom the team has a close partnership.
But while the design philosophy is different, Perez still wants the car to feel like the other cars to have come from the Silverstone-based team.
“I hope it will perform like that! What is good is the decision to run a car very close to what we will have in Melbourne and that’s a very positive thing,” he revealed via FormulaSpy.
“We can focus and learn compared to other seasons where we were late with the car. Today we are on the right track and the car has potential and we can start strong.
“There are similarities to last year in terms of driving, but it’s a very good step in the car but very early days and a lot of work coming over the next few days.”
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The first two days have certainly raised expectations with Perez finishing third behind the two Mercedes drivers on Day 1 on Wednesday, prior to his P2 on Thursday.
But he played down the significance of those results.
“The most important thing is that we’ve been able to complete a lot of kilometres, given the limit on the amount of testing,” he stated.
“That’s been priority number one and the car definitely has good potential. There’s still so much learning to be done, and things we have to do and gather information.
“Everything has gone really well and very pleased with the reliability we have had. Hopefully, Friday is another good day for the team with Lance driving the car and it’s been a good start to testing.”