Sergio Perez issues Cadillac warning amid renewed Aston Martin threat

Sergio Perez has warned Cadillac "not to be left behind" as Aston Martin appears to have made a breakthrough in F1.

Given the Honda-powered team's woes at the start of the campaign with vibrations and a lack of performance, Cadillac had slotted into 10th place in the pecking order, but in Miami, Aston appeared to take a step forward.

This is without any upgrades as Honda believes it has found a solution with its countermeasures for the vibrations, with the team now looking at adding performance.

In the Sprint race, Fernando Alonso finished ahead of Perez, with both Astons then out-qualifying both Cadillacs for the first time for the grand prix, in which Alonso finished 15th after a race-long duel with Perez.

Reflecting, the Mexican veteran felt Cadillac needed to up its game to avoid being left behind by Aston. 

"We had fun with them, especially fighting with Fernando," Perez told media, including RacingNews365, of his race-long battle with Alonso. 

"It is always a great thing because he is very aggressive, but very fair.

"I think we're heading in the right direction, but as soon as the degradation kicks in, we can be with the midfield, but they are just able to pick the pace up quite a lot.

"We are in a massive hurry to find performance, because we know Aston is going to be improving, and we don't want to be left behind.

"It is great motivation, but it is not about them. It is just about improving ourselves, weekend after weekend, in all areas.

"The pit-stop [in the race] was amazing, it was a really good job by the team, which shows we can do stuff, so we have to be like that in a lot of different departments in the coming weekends."