Force India success down to people - Perez

Despite having one of the smallest budgets on the grid, Force India has finished fourth in the constructors’ championship for the last two years - only behind leading manufacturers Mercedes and Ferrari as well as energy drinks giant Red Bull.

The way Force India has risen up the field since its acquisition of backmarker Spyker in 2008 has won the Silverstone-based squad plenty of plaudits from pundits, who have praised its operational and financial efficiency.

Perez, who has been a part of Force India’s progression since leaving McLaren at the end of 2013, hailed the team’s managerial and engineering staff for its ability to constantly punch above its weight.

“The team has developed massively since I first got here,” Perez told Motorsport.com. “Now I believe that Force India is one of the strongest team in Formula 1.

“Those people are key. There are some key players in the team such as Otmar [Szafnauer, COO] and Andy Green [technical director] - they do a really good job.

“There are also people behind them that do an extremely good job but I wouldn’t like to mention them because I know I can put them in risk if other teams know who they are. It’s all down to them, the team has been doing great thanks to all the people."

Force India not only has to arrest an increasingly rising pace deficit to the top guns, but also be wary of improvements from manufacturers Renault and McLaren.

Perez feels that since the team is already exploiting the maximum out of its resources, only an increase in budget will allow it to move further up the pack.

“The only thing that this team doesn’t have is the budget. We live very limited. Everything that we do has to be very important,” he said.

“I think the next step has to come on budget. There are good things planned for the future but nothing confirmed yet, but the main thing has to be budget.“

With owners Vijay Mallya and Sahara Group’s Subrata Roy facing separate financial charges back in india, Perez is now pinning hopes on outside financial support.

F1’s current commercial agreements expire at the end of 2020 and the sport’s new owner Liberty Media has vowed to overhaul the financial system.

“Outside. Out of the team, outside of our control,” he said. “The team manager is very positive on that but let’s see wait and see, you never know what Formula 1 will hold for us.”