Sergio Perez says he expects the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend to be a "hard one" for the Racing Point team.
Perez was only 14th quickest during Bahrain's second practice session on Friday, with only the Alfa Romeo and Williams cars slower.
The Mexican believes the circuit characteristics are showing up the weaknesses of the Racing Point car and doesn't expect to progress through to Q3 on Saturday, despite managing to do so in Melbourne.
"It has not been the greatest day, the circuit is exposing more of our limitations at the moment," he explained.
"We seem to be further away than we were in Melbourne. We’re working hard, hopefully tonight we can pick up a few tenths, find a good balance and be a bit closer. I don’t expect us to be in Q3 tomorrow unless like Melbourne, most of the teams get it wrong and we can be there.
"But we’ll try our best. It’s looking like a hard weekend but we will try our best to see if we can score points."
Perez's team-mate Lance Stroll is hopeful things can be turned around overnight after he too struggled for pace.
"It wasn’t easy, but we’re going to figure it out tonight," said the Canadian.
"We’ll see what we can do overnight, we need some speed, there’s no doubt. It’s tricky to get into the top 10 at the moment, looking at the timesheets, but we’ll do some work tomorrow and come back stronger tomorrow."
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