Force India
Nico Hulkenberg: It was one of those days where we ticked off all the jobs without too many issues. I think the long run pace is looking a bit better than our one lap pace, but we still need to find a better balance overnight. There’s a lot of homework to do, but we did a lot of laps today so we have the data we need to make our decisions for tomorrow.
Sergio Perez: Today was not the easiest of days, although we had anticipated we would struggle here more than on previous circuits. It is clear that we need to find something more tonight if we want to really fight the teams ahead of us. We couldn't find the right balance and throughout the first two sessions I didn’t feel particularly comfortable, either on the short or the long runs. Tonight's debrief and the engineers’ work will hopefully give us some solutions so that we can be a bit more competitive tomorrow and, most importantly, in the race.
Robert Fernley, Deputy Team Principal: We split the programme between the two drivers in FP1 – evaluating some small aero variations to the front and rear of the car, and gathered all the information we needed. It’s fair to say the drivers have struggled with the general balance of the car, especially with the high track temperatures this afternoon, but we worked hard to try and make improvements during the sessions. We take some encouragement from the long run performance, which at this stage appears to be more consistent and more competitive than our pace over a single lap. We also recognise that the margins to the teams ahead of us are quite small so if we can find a good direction tonight we can bring ourselves forward in the midfield fight. That’s especially important for qualifying because we know how difficult it is to overtake here and track position is crucial.
