Sergio Perez says the pace shown by Force India in Sochi is "very promising" ahead of tomorrow's Russian Grand Prix.
Following limited running in practice, both Force Indias were strong in qualifying as Nico Hulkenberg secured sixth place on the grid, with Perez one position behind. Perez believes it was possible for one or both drivers to beat Kimi Raikkonen after the Ferrari driver made an error on his final run, and he says the performance is encouraging for the race.
“I think we had a very good baseline with the team and that helped us to move forward and start the weekend really well," Perez said. "Since yesterday we’ve been really competitive, today, all the time we’ve really been there. So it was a good performance by the team.
"It’s funny that at the meeting everyone was quite disappointed with the qualifying and we’re sixth and seventh. That’s very promising and then hopefully tomorrow we can be a little bit more happy.”
Team-mate Nico Hulkenberg agreed with Perez that Force India had exceeded expectations on Saturday and wants to fight with Ferrari in the race.
“I think actually better than we expected," Hulkenberg said. Obviously going in to qualifying how this weekend went it was really difficult to know what to expect anyway because yesterday there was no running, this morning very interrupted running with the red flag so it was really difficult to know where we are in the competitive order. We find ourselves in a good position, the car was competitive and worked quite well in qualifying.
“My strategy is more to follow that train ahead. Recently we have been stronger than the Lotuses in race pace. In qualifying they are quite close or even in front of us but in race pace we have been quite strong I think in the last couple of races if you look at that. So I feel confident that we can put a good race together tomorrow.”
Rosberg beats Hamilton to Sochi pole
AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix qualifying
Gallery: Carlos Sainz's crash in FP3
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