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F1 Italian GP: Perez: No politics in Force India key to success

Sergio Perez says the lack of political struggles inside the Force India team gives it the ideal structure to produce success which he feels has been the key to the squad's jump to fourth in the F1 world constructors' championship.

The Mexican driver has notched up two podiums so far in 2016 while he and team-mate Nico Hulkenberg secured the team's best combined result of the year at Spa, a fourth and a five place, to leapfrog Williams in the championship.

Perez feels Force India's success has come as a relative surprise, given the team scored just one points finish in the opening three races, and believes concentrating on finding solutions to its tyre degradation issue has been vital to get the maximum performance out of the VJM09.

The Mexican says the combination of key technical minds and lack of political conflict has ensured Force India has reached its targets and can continue to exceed expectations.

"To look back to see the season we have had so far with two podiums and great racing," Perez said. "It has been a really strong year. We knew we had a competitive car but we were suffering a lot with the tyre degradation. We identified them early on and that was a massive key to it, focusing on the weak areas on the car early in the year.

"The technical people are very good and there are no politics in the team so everyone is allowed to do their job which makes a massive difference in the environment of the team. Everyone is working to be better and as a team that is the key.

"There is still a long way to go in the season and it is not going to be easy to hold on to fourth but at least we are fighting in this level which is something that makes me feel extremely proud."

With Perez looking set to stay at the Silverstone-based squad, with the Mexican stating his 2017 plans will be confirmed by the Singapore race, he feels Force India has been able to work better compared to his experiences at previous teams. Perez lasted just one season with McLaren in 2013 after failing to gel with the team.

"I think when you have big teams with big budgets and big numbers of people it is obviously very nice to have but it can easily go wrong," he said. "It is important to have a good structure, good people and we have key people in each department who do their job properly. It helps also to have good team bosses."

Zdroj: crash.net