• Second Barcelona Test, Day One

'We have a lot of work to do' - Perez

Dry running was limited on Thursday © Getty Images

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• Drivers:
• Sergio Perez

• Teams:
• McLaren

Sergio Perez has admitted he has a lot of work to do on his final day of testing at Barcelona if he is to arrive at the Australian Grand Prix fully prepared for his McLaren debut.

Wet conditions on Thursday limited useful running for Perez and now he has just one day left in the car on Saturday before heading to the first race in Melbourne in two weeks' time. At the last test his team-mate Jenson Button admitted McLaren was struggling to understand the car after limited running and Perez said little had changed.

"I think it's still the same," Perez said when asked about Button's comments. "I cannot tell you we've learned such an amount on the set-up. Basically today we didn't learn about the set-up, we were learning about the [wet and intermediate] tyres and how they behave and the crossover to go from wets to inters. That from a driver point of view is important, but on the set-up there is a lot of work to be done in the next couple of days for us and they will be very important days for the start of the season.

"We definitely would like to be going into Melbourne with a lot more information than we have at the moment. We had a couple of difficult days with a few problems getting the information from the car, but in the end it's important that we maximise our chances and I'm sure everybody in the paddock has had some problems. Everybody would like to arrive at Melbourne a bit better prepared but in the end you have to maximise your chances. Today we've had a very bad day [with the weather] and we've still managed to take the maximum from it."

Perez said he was desperate to get some dry running on Saturday in order to understand how the car's new upgrades are affecting the set-up.

"On the last day I would really like to learn about the updates on the car and about the set-up - to get comfortable with the set-up," he added. "The last day I was here I was not comfortable with the set-up I had and we've done some changes and I would like to try them before Melbourne. If I don't get the opportunity to try them then we have to look forward into Melbourne and there's nothing else we can do."

He said there was no way of knowing exactly where McLaren stacks up against its rivals.

"If we don't get a dry day before Melbourne it will be so difficult to judge where the grid is. At the moment we don't know - we know we are quick but we don't know how quick. I think with everyone it depends on their updates as well and how big their updates are and how big an advantage you can take from set-up and updates ... we will see in Melbourne."

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