Force India drivers qualify on 7th row
Sahara Force India will line up on the seventh row of the grid for tomorrow’s Spanish Grand Prix. Paul Di Resta had a bit of trouble with his car's balance and will start from P13 while Nico Hulkenberg starts aside of him in P14.
Paul Di Resta, P13, VJM05/02:
Q1: 1:23.852, Q2: 1:23.125
“It has been quite a difficult weekend so far trying to get the car dialled into the circuit. In fact, it was only during the my final qualifying run that we made a change to the aero balance and I felt that the car was really hooked up. It’s close throughout the field once again, but we’ve been fairly aggressive on set-up and our pace over longs runs has looked quite competitive so far this weekend, which gives us a reason to be optimistic for the race. The goal will be to make up ground tomorrow and I think it will be a big achievement if we can pick up some points.”
Nico Hulkenberg, P14, VJM05/03:
Q1: 1:23.702, Q2: 1:23.177
“I’m pretty satisfied with my final lap in Q2 because I don’t think we could have achieved much more from the session today. That’s just where we are at the moment in terms of qualifying pace. We are still getting to understand the upgrades we have on the car, but it’s also clear that everyone else has made a step forward here and so the midfield remains extremely tight. The races so far this year have shown that grid position is not as crucial as it used to be with a lot of movement in the races, so I think we can still have a good race.”
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal:
“The team has done an excellent job over the last few weeks to push through our upgrade package and get it on the car this weekend. But it’s still early days and I’m sure that over the coming races we can fine-tune things further and extract even more performance. With than in mind I think we can take encouragement from our qualifying showing today with both Nico and Paul just a couple of tenths shy of squeezing through to Q3. We’ve been pleased with our tyre wear and the performance over long runs suggests we are in good shape for a competitive race tomorrow.”
