Stroll: I need to look to myself to beat F1 team-mate Perez

Stroll only out-qualified Perez on two occasions in 2019 - with one of those intra-team wins coming at the United States Grand Prix in which Perez did not set a representative time due to a grid penalty.

Perez also finished at the head of 'Class B' in the Azerbaijan, Belgian, Mexican and Abu Dhabi grands prix, while Stroll recorded Racing Point's best finish of 2019 by taking fourth at the wild German Grand Prix.

Stroll scored points just twice after F1's summer break, compared to Perez scoring points in every race apart from the Singapore Grand Prix in which he retired after an oil leak.

Asked if it was beneficial to have a benchmark like Perez as a team-mate, Stroll said: "Yeah, for sure.

"Definitely in the second half of the season, he really got a lot of momentum going, and I think it's just his knowledge - he has been with the same team for five, six years and has knowledge of setting up the car and managing the tyres.

"A combination of all those things.

"It's great to have him across the garage for me, just picking up on details here and there.

"But at the end of the day, at this level, you have got to kind of be your own artist on the track."

He added: "I think it's about understanding how to improve some of my weaknesses, I can only speak for myself, but how to build on some of my weaknesses and then hold on to some of my strengths.

"So if you're always chasing the guy that's next to me in the garage, you are never really going to be able to beat him right?

"So you have to kind of be creative in your own way. And I think it's just about balancing that out.

"There's definitely been things that I picked up from him, especially towards the beginning of the year when everything was new to me.

"Now I'm looking at next year and I'm trying to just kind of focus on my own thing and work with my 'controllables', what I know will bring me success."