Force India to investigate turbo issue with Mercedes

Force India will work closely with Mercedes to try and rectify the turbo issues which prevented Nico Hulkenberg from starting the Belgian Grand Prix.

Hulkenberg was hit by a problem with the turbo during qualifying and it resurfaced during the formation lap at Spa-Francorchamps, with the team originally telling him to pit ahead of the start of the race. Hulkenberg was then told to take the start but the problem was still evident and the start was aborted to allow the Force India to be cleared from the grid.

With Hulkenberg never joining the race - in which team-mate Sergio Perez finished in a strong fifth place - deputy team principal Bob Fernley told F1i there would be investigations ahead of Monza.

“We had a bit of an issue with it [in qualifying] although that was not the reason he didn’t make Q3, but he had no boost, effectively,” Fernley said. “We thought we’d corrected it which is why he took the formation lap, but then it hadn’t done and we didn’t want to start with no boost because it would endanger others.

“We will work very hard with Mercedes to get it right because obviously we don’t want to have any failures there.”

And Fernley admits Hulkenberg’s issue took a bit of the shine off what was an impressive performance from the team in Belgium.

“A great day because I think we achieved a good result, Checo drove superbly. We beat some very good opposition fair and square. We didn’t quite have the pace to beat Lotus or Red Bull, I thought they were excellent, but for us I don’t think we could have expected any better.

“Disappointed in so much as that we couldn’t get both Checo and Nico in the points, and it sort of cost us fifth place by one point so we’ve got to battle back a bit now.”

Click here for F1i's driver ratings after the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. 

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