Sergio Perez is aiming to take the first points of his rookie season at the Turkish Grand Prix next weekend.
Perez crossed the line seventh on his debut at the Australian Grand Prix but was later disqualified when the rear wing on both Sauber's was found to be in breach of the rules. His team-mate Kamui Kobayashi has scored points at both races since Australia and Perez is looking to emulate his performance in Turkey.
"In a way I feel for me the championship is about to start now with these next races on circuits I know," he said. "I have raced at Istanbul Park twice in the GP2 series and I find the track very nice. I especially used to enjoy turn eight a lot. With the Formula One car it will, of course, be physically demanding for the neck muscles, and turn eight will also be a special challenge for the front tyres. We will have to be careful with them. In any case I'm really looking forward to the Turkish Grand Prix and I want to bag my first points."
Kobayashi believes success at the Turkish Grand Prix will rest on tyre management during the race.
"There are a couple of high speed corners which I like, and I feel we should be quite competitive in Turkey," he said. "However, the corner I like most is the triple left hander which forms turn eight. Regarding tyre management, I find it difficult to predict how the situation will develop. The grip level at this circuit is normally very low, which means the cars tend to slide a lot. I believe it will be crucial to save the front tyres in particular so the wear is as low as possible."
Sauber technical director James Key expects to see a wide range of strategies as teams crunch the numbers to find the best way to use their tyre allocation over 58 laps of Istanbul Park.
"It will be another interesting event for the tyres, because the famous turn eight is one of the high speed corners of the year with the highest loading of the tyres," Key said. "Although we have seen some high speed corners at the last two events, I think this is by far another step beyond that. It will be interesting to see how well the tyres cope with that in terms of wear and degradation. This could result in some alternative strategies in the race, but we will not know until we get there."
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