Force India at a loss over failures

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Force India will investigate why it struggled so much with brakes and tyres as both of its cars retired from the Austrian Grand Prix.

Following two podiums in three races for the team, Nico Hulkenberg started from second on the grid as it looked to continue its recent good form. However, the German slipped back rapidly through the field before eventually retiring with brake concerns.

Sergio Perez was making good progress from outside the top ten after a disappointing qualifying session, but running eighth with two laps to go he suffered a total brake failure which eliminated him from the points.

Asked if there was any warning ahead of the Perez failure which saw him crash at Turn 3, deputy team principal Bob Fernley told F1i: “Nope, nothing.

“The thing is you went from something where you were very optimistic to something that was a disaster really. But at the end of the day you’ve just got to brush yourself down. In terms of damage to us championship-wise, fortunately nobody else had a good weekend. Williams sneaked a couple more points and so did Toro Rosso but in the great scheme of things it wasn’t too much.

“I thought we were going to salvage something with Checo’s run because Williams were out of the points at that point and we could have just salvaged something but it wasn’t to be.”

With Hulkenberg struggling immediately in the race, Fernley says Force India will need to analyse why its tyre problems were so bad.

“He didn’t have a good start, bogged down a little bit at the start, and we just couldn't keep the tyres under him. Literally we were having graining problems right from day one. I’m not sure we would have been able to finish even with having done the extra stop.

“I don’t know [what the cause is] but we need to look at it. We’re doing something obviously that we need to look at very carefully.”

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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.