Sergio Perez: '2017 cars not harder to drive'

Sergio Perez has said that he was surprised when he sampled Formula 1's much faster cars for the first time in Barcelona testing recently.

The 2017 rules were penned to make the cars much faster, in turn requiring the drivers to train harder and put on muscle to deal with the greater G-forces.

However, Mexican Perez told Spanish sports daily Marca: "I noticed almost no difference in physical effort between the [2016 and 2017] cars.

"I think this point has been somewhat exaggerated."

Indeed, with Perez and Force India teammate Esteban Ocon having put on muscle bulk over the winter, but with the team's car reportedly 10kg overweight, it is claimed the team now want the pair to lose 2kg each.