F1: Still A Lot Of Work To Do Before Season, Says Perez

Formula 1

F1: Still A Lot Of Work To Do Before Season, Says Perez

Wednesday marked Sergio Perez's first official day as a McLaren driver...

Adam Cooper | http://www.speedtv.com | Posted January 09, 2013 London (GBR)

Sergio Perez (Left) poses with new boss Martin Whitmarsh (Right) at a McLaren PR event on Wednesday in London. (Photo: McLaren)

Sergio Perez enjoyed his first official day as a McLaren driver on Tuesday, speaking to the assembled team staff and also meeting the media wearing his new colors.

It was not his first visit to the McLaren factory, as he has already been there to try the simulator, and for a seat fitting and engineering meetings, but until today he had not been on PR duty for the team. Not surprisingly, the Mexican was in an upbeat mood.

“It’s been a great day, a very busy day, but an extremely nice day,” he said. “I have really enjoyed all the work as an official McLaren driver. It’s been very special for me.”

Perez admits that he has a lot of work to do even before testing of the new car begins at the start of February.

“The most important thing for me is to get into the rhythm of everything automatically, in terms of the steering wheel, to get to know all the codes, all the functions of the car, to understand the car quite a lot in terms of setups for me to be able to have a good communication with my engineers," he said.

“I think it’s a very important part, as well, to build my relationship with my engineers, with the team, and to get together so when I come into the first test, I have as much familiarization as possible with the whole team, and when we get to Melbourne that I’m very well-prepared and everything comes automatically, and I don’t have to think so many things. The more prepared I can get, the better it will be.”

Asked by SPEED.com if he was getting to know key technical folks Paddy Lowe and Sam Michael, he said: “We had some time during last year, some meetings, obviously, to start the familiarization for them and for myself, so we start to understand ourselves. It’s going well, time after time it’s getting better. I think we are going in the right direction and we are doing good work so far, and we have a month to go before the first test.”

He admits that he wasn’t able to get too involved in what direction the new car has taken.

“Obviously, it’s difficult for me to give any input but in the simulator while driving, the team already started to know me better in terms of driving style, so I think in that respect, that helped a bit. But if I’m honest, I didn’t have much input in the new car.”

Elaborating on his first go in the McLaren simulator – a tool he did not have access to at his previous team – he said: “I was there last year; Sauber allowed me to come. I was there for only one half day.”

Adam Cooper notched up his 28th season as a racing journalist in 2012. He has written about F1 for SPEED.com since 2005. Follow him on Twitter.