Force India celebrates consecutive Q3 successes

Force India drivers Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon were delighted to have both made it through to Q3 for the second race weekend in a row.

Perez will start from eighth place in Sunday's Spanish Grand Prix, one place better than in Sochi. Ocon meanwhile claimed his second consecutive tenth place on the grid. Both drivers also went on to finish in the points last time out.

It's becoming such a regular occurrence that the drivers actually expressed a little disappointment in the outcome. Both felt that they could have done even better in Saturday's qualifying session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Perez in particular sounded irked to have been pipped by McLaren's Fernando Alonso.

"I’m very happy to be up in P8, although I am a bit disappointed to lose out to Fernando by such a small margin," he said.

"This result comes as a bit of a surprise after some difficult practice sessions," he added. "But I think the team did everything right this afternoon.

"I think the key to our performance was the way we approached our warm-up lap," he suggested. "We got the tyres in the correct window and found the grip when it mattered.

"The race is going to be long," he said, looking forward to Sunday. "Overtaking is difficult here, so I hope I can make up some ground at the start. We have some very quick cars behind us who will give us a challenge, but I think we’re on course for a good race."

Qualifying: Hamilton beats Vettel to pole position in Spain

"It’s great to make Q3 again," contributed Ocon. "But I am disappointed not to be higher up the grid.

"My lap in Q3 was heavily compromised because I didn’t get the DRS to work," he revealed. "I pressed the button too early and the DRS didn’t open. So I missed out on some performance – maybe three tenths, which would have made a big difference.

"On the other hand, as a team we have both cars inside the top ten and we’ve shown that when it matters we are strong and consistent.

"That’s encouraging for tomorrow," he said. "A good start and strong first lap will be important tomorrow and I’m confident we have the speed to get a good result."

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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.