Perez hoping to solve future before 'flyaway' events

Sergio Perez admits that he would like to have his future solved before Formula 1 starts its 'flyaway' stage of the season. After the Belgian Grand Prix this weekend, F1 travels to Italy for the last European race of the year.

After Italy, the remaining races will be held in Asia and the Americas starting in Singapore and ending with the season finale in Abu Dhabi. Perez wants to know where he will be driving in 2018 before F1 reaches Singapore, and it is expected that the Mexican will sign a new deal with Force India.

When asked about his future, he said: "I'm quite close. As you know every deal I do involves my Mexican sponsors, right now they are in discussions, hopefully soon we can be in a position to announce something.

"In three months' time the season ends, it won't take too long I think; I think between now and hopefully once we go into Asia I will have my future secured. But I'm in no hurry, I know that I'm in a good position so I want to focus basically on extracting the performance from the car and having a good weekend."

Despite Force India bringing upgrades to most events, Perez has reported increased levels of understeer, claiming some of the upgrades are affecting his driving style: "I feel that the car has developed pretty much every race and not really suiting my style," Perez said.

"I tend to carry a lot of speed on the entry and that has been one of the problems in the last couple of races. We're trying to sort that and we came to the conclusion for qualifying that I have to adapt my style to it. Hopefully now we kind of figured out the issue, it's not a big issue as when you look at our results we've been taking the maximum we could but it's something we can still improve." 

Fergal Walsh