Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsForce India

Hulkenberg readjusting after Le Mans win

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Nico Hulkenberg admits it has taken him a little while to readjust to his Force India after his Le Mans victory last weekend.

During Friday practice for the Austrian Grand Prix, Hulkenberg was 13th in the opening session before he finished sixth fastest in FP2. Having improved throughout the day, Hulkenberg said he had to get used to an F1 car once again having completed so much mileage in Porsche's LMP1 car since Canada.

Asked about the encouraging result in FP2, Hulkenberg replied: "That is only one lap time.

"Generally we made good progress during the day. Building up in the morning it took a while to get in the groove, it felt like I had driven something else for quite a few laps, but then back to business really. I think we learned a bit, it was a pretty straight-forward day, no issues."

While P6 points to a strong weekend for Force India, Hulkenberg says the team is definitely making progress but warns a top ten finish will be difficult.

"Generally the soft tyres suit us more than the hard tyres. It is an engine track so we are covered there, then generally in the last few weeks we have found better set-up solutions for our car that make us look a little better, but I don’t want to price this weekend too early, I think it will be tight and tough for us to be in the points this weekend."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.