Sergio Perez has said that Alfonso Celis Jr needs to up his pace this week during the in-season testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, and in doing so will benefit the teams progression.
Sahara Force India took the decision to not to run either Perez or Nico Hulkenberg in the first in-season test for the 2016 Formula 1 season. Instead for both Tuesday and Wednesday in Barcelona, their development driver Celis will be behind the wheel of the VJM09.
Perez believes the Mexican has been quite off the pace while in the cockpit but sees this as a logical step to run with him at both testing days in Barcelona.
“We need our third driver to get some mileage, which is important because you don’t know what might happen,” Perez told ESPN. “He has been quite off the pace lately so we need him to get bit faster, and he needs time in the car, so that’s a quite logical step to use him.”
When asked if he would have liked to participate in testing this week, Perez said, “It would be good, but from the other perspective it’s good for the team to get some cash to pay for the upgrades!
“We have great engineers and I believe that [this week] we will have a clear direction on what we need to do, so I don’t see it as a big problem. I’m sure what they test here can also be good and we can get some good information.”
