Indian GP: Sergio Perez thinks he proved worth to McLaren

The Mexican, who is still fighting to keep his seat for 2014, finished the race in fifth position, his best result of the season.

Perez says that performing under the pressure he is under shows that he is ready for great things.

"Finally we had a race without any bad luck like we had in the last two or three races, where we should have finished in a similar position," said Perez, whose previous best result with McLaren had been a sixth place.

"There's no question that I have a lot of pressure and only great champions can perform with a lot of pressure. So I think that's a good sign.

"It is really good. We have three races to go and hopefully we can keep it up."

The McLaren driver admitted it was fantastic to overtake both Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton with the same move during the race.

"It was, really," he said. "Then I was just trying to keep Lewis behind and I managed to do it."

Team-mate Jenson Button had a day to forget after being hit by Ferrari's Fernando Alonso during the opening lap.

The Briton was running out of the points before pulling out of the race with one lap to go.

"I got hit on the first lap quite hard by Fernando and I had a puncture from it," said Button.

"The problem was I was on the medium tyre, which is the one you need to run long on. It destroyed that.

"I had two pitstops by lap 16 or something. It wasn't a very good afternoon."