Sergio Perez laments Sauber's poor qualifying form in Valencia

The Mexican started from 15th place on the grid for the second consecutive race, but made progress to finish in the points again following his podium in Canada.

With Sauber's race pace being very strong, Perez has urged the Swiss squad to up its game in the grid-deciding sessions.

"It was a difficult race today," said Perez. "We risked quite a lot with our strategy and in the end the tyre degradation was huge.

"You can say two points are not a bad result if you've came from 15th on the grid, but the most important thing now is to improve our qualifying performance. I was 15th on the grid for the second consecutive race and there is a lot more to achieve if I could only start further up the grid."

Team-mate Kamui Kobayashi had a day to forget after making contact with Bruno Senna and Felipe Massa before he was given a penalty for his collision with the latter.

The Japanese driver will lose five places on the starting grid of the British Grand Prix.

"I am very disappointed. I definitely had a good start from seventh. I made up two positions straight away and then overtook Pastor Maldonado on lap one. I was fourth and it looked promising. Then at my first pit stop after 14 laps we had a problem with the front left wheel.

"After that I was 11th and still had a good chance. On lap 20 I was following Kimi Raikkonen, who was overtaking Bruno Senna, and then was on the inside next to Senna. I had the wall and nowhere to go when we touched. I had to pit for a nose change.

"Later, when the race was restarted after the safety car period, I was fighting with Felipe Massa for position. Our cars touched and this time the damage was too bad to continue."