Force India learned little from first practice sessions
Sahara Force India made the most of mixed weather conditions in Albert Park as the 2012 season got underway with free practice for the Australian Grand Prix. It will be waiting game until tomorrow until we will see real performance differences.
Paul Di Resta, VJM05/02:
FP1: P13, 1:29.881, 18 laps
FP2: P6, 1:31.466, 13 laps
“Difficult to say too much about the first or second session because the conditions were so inconsistent with the rain showers. Even so, we made the best of it and focussed on assessing the aero package we have here and managed to learn a few things. We also made some set-up changes between the two sessions and the car felt better in the evening, so that was positive. The difficult thing is that we didn’t really get an impression of where everybody is in terms of performance, so there are still lots of unknowns going into tomorrow.”
Nico Hulkenberg, VJM05/03:
FP1: P12, 1:29.865, 17 laps
FP2: P2, 1:29.292, 19 laps
“Both FP1 and FP2 had mixed conditions, especially FP2 with the heavy rain, which arrived just before the start of the session. But we made the best of it and I ran on the full wets, the intermediates and the soft tyres when the track had dried out. It’s difficult to read much from the times because not everyone ran the soft tyres and there were lots of different fuel loads, but the main thing for me is that I have a good feeling with the car already.”
Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer:
“On days like this you just have to be patient and wait for the right opportunities, but it’s better to play the waiting game than run when the conditions are not ideal. Overall I think we were on track at the right times and on the right tyres, and it’s always worth going out even if there’s just a small thing you can learn. When we were on track we did some work evaluating our aero package and got some useful data. The most important thing is that we made the most of the dry periods to get the drivers into the rhythm of the track.”
