Sergio Perez believes the pressure will be on Force♍ India Formula 1 teammate Esteban Ocon next year to replicate his impressive firs𒊎t season with the team, saying the paddock will “expect big things”.

Ocon stepped up 💫to a full-season seat with Force India in 2017 after spending half a year with backmarker Manor, and produced an impressive campaign t꧋hat saw him finish the season eighth overall in the final drivers’ standings.

Ocon put up a fight to highly-rated teammate Perez, with the pair making contact on-track on multiple occasions as they fought for position an🎉d supremacy within the team.

While 🎃Pꦅerez beat Ocon by 13 points in the final standings, the Mexican recognised the impressive showing his teammate had produced in his first full season in F1. 

“I think in general 💛he was strong,” Perez said.” I had a bit of a period with a couple of races where we had these rules of engageme✨nt where we could not fight each other.

“All of a sudden there my qualifying, we brought some upgrades, and setting up the car with those u♉pgrades, I lacked a lot of balance. I was not feeling comfortable over one lap, and Esteban all🐭 of a sudden was quite strong in qualifying.

“I think over that period was where ꦆI s🌊truggled. I'm pleased that we managed to fix that. We have a very good understanding of what went wrong.

“I'm pretty confident, especially going forward 🀅for next year, i🎃t's a good starting point for myself.”

Looking ahead to 2018, Perez believes the pressure will be on O🎀con to repeat his impressive first year and continue to be a close match at Force India.

“I think the pressureꦛ will be on him now because it's the🌊 second year for him,” Perez said.

“Everyone will expect big things from him.

“It will be again very close I think.”