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Barcelona ideal test for MP4-28 - Perez

Sergio Perez: "It'll be a good place to test the car as it's a very demanding circuit aerodynamically" © Getty Images

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• Sergio Perez

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Sergio Perez believes the Circuit de Catalunya will be an ideal test for McLaren's MP4-28 as it looks to develop its car following a poor start to the season.

Similar to most teams, McLaren is planning a major update for the start of the European season, which has taken on added importance after the team spent the first four races off the pace of the front runners. Jenson Button has downplayed how crucial the upgrades will be, but Perez says that the track - which is regularly used for pre-season testing - is the perfect place for McLaren to be analysing its new parts.

"The Circuit de Catalunya is a place all grand prix drivers know well because we do a lot of miles there in the winter," Perez said. "It'll be a good place to test the car as it's a very demanding circuit aerodynamically. We have a lot of historic data from our testing there, and we'll get a good read on our performance when we start testing next Friday.

"It's quite a demanding circuit aerodynamically, too, so it should be a very useful weekend for us in terms of understanding the MP4-28 and the direction forwards that we choose to take."

Perez also thinks the DRS will be valuable in delivering an exciting race at a track that was previously renowned for being hard to overtake on.

"I hope that the introduction of two DRS zones at Barcelona will help improve the racing. We saw in both China and Bahrain that Formula 1 cars can race really closely if they are under the right conditions; Barcelona has always been a difficult circuit for overtaking, so I hope the new regulations will improve matters. It would be great for the thousands in the grandstands if there were some spectacular overtaking along the main straight."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.