Sergio Perez says he’ll be unhappy if not in the top four on the grid for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The Mexican’s Racing Point team are specialists around Spa-Francorchamps historically, and that was certainly proven with Checo finishing less than four-tenths off the leading pace in practice on Friday.
Red Bull may well be within reach for Perez and teammate Lance Stroll when they turn up the Mercedes engines for qualifying and that’s why expectations are particularly high.
“We’re happy, we’ve had a strong Friday, so looking forward to putting everything together, I think we’re going to be in the mix tomorrow,” Sergio assessed.
“Let’s see what happens with the conditions but I’m pretty confident, I was happy with the car today. So it’s been a strong Friday.
“I will be disappointed not to be in the first two rows tomorrow, so we are very optimistic,” he added. “The car is performing well, I hope overnight we are able to find a couple of tenths and then we can be in the mix.”
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Not only is the single-lap pace of the Racing Point set to be tough to match, but Perez also potentially sees a chance for a 10th career podium.
“I think also we were strong [on race pace] but we don’t have enough information,” he admitted. “We’re on the same page as everybody else, because we got the red flag. So it will be interesting to see what happens in the race.”
One factor though that could play a role is the weather, although the threat of rain does seem to be decreasing as the weekend progresses.
Even so, if Spa does play some party tricks, Perez is confident there’ll be no repeat of the issues seen in Austria.
“I think we’ve picked up a lot of pace in the wet as well so I would prefer dry because we’ve found a good rhythm, but I don’t mind,” he commented.
“I hope tomorrow we can be strong in the wet.”