Nico Hulkenberg says the new Force India is “quite similar” to its predecessor after driving the VJM08 for the first time.
Following numerous delays throughout pre-season testing, the new Force India finally made its track debut on Friday as Hulkenberg managed to complete 77 laps. Having only first run in the final hour before lunch, Hulkenberg says he is pleased with the reliability but hasn’t learned a huge amount about the car yet.
“The thing to point out first of all is the reliability seems to be OK,” Hulkenberg said. “Out of the box we did 77 laps almost just in an afternoon, so I think that’s a good job. Obviously we have a lot of work ahead of us playing catch-up at the moment but the first couple of laps were good. This afternoon I was learning about the car and tyres etc. But quite satisfied so far.”
Asked for his initial feelings regarding the VJM08, Hulkenberg says it’s not a big departure from last year’s car.
“It’s a start, it’s a baseline but I think we have a lot of work ahead of us … It’s not completely different, no. A little bit.
“Winter testing is always with cooler track temperatures, it’s always difficult to tell. I can feel some areas where it’s a bit better but some areas are quite similar so it’s difficult to say for sure now.”
And Hulkenberg admits Force India will be firmly on the back foot at the first race in Australia.
“I guess we’ll only find out [how far behind] once we’re in Melbourne. It’s really hard to tell just in theory. Obviously it’s not ideal and having had more test time with this car would have been better but the situation is as it is now and we’ll just deal with it as well as we can from here.
“We have a good crew together and usually we learn quite quickly. In this case we have to learn quickly and then see where we can push ourselves in to in Melbourne.”
Full times and day two as it happened
Click here for the gallery from day two of the final test
