Saturday: Everything ready for the race at Force India
After a good start to the season, especially by rookie Paul di Resta, the Force India drivers aimed to place high on the grid to target points. However, they ultimately remain at the bottom of Q2, both overtaken by the Team Lotus of Heikki Kovalainen.
Paul Di Resta – 16th
I don’t think our position on the grid is representative of our true pace this weekend. We made an early decision to save tires for the race, which gives us a bit more freedom with strategy. This means I have sets of new soft tires and a set of new hard tires to use tomorrow. On paper, this seems like the approach to take to hope things work out well. The way we use the tires is also important because there is a big difference in pace between the two tires. Furthermore, the hard tire used here seems harder than usual and thus lasts a bit longer. I’m now looking forward to the race, and I’m sure we can leave here with a better result than our qualifying performance.
Adrian Sutil – 17th
« We reviewed our traditional aero package this morning, as we really didn’t have enough time to understand all the parts we brought here. So we went back to a package and a balance we were already satisfied with. We also know that qualifying is no longer as important as it used to be, and that strategy now plays a significant role in the outcome of your race. That’s why we only ran with hard tires during Q2, allowing us to save fresh soft tires for the race. We feel that this is the best approach for tomorrow and hope that it will pay off for us.
Robert Femley
« We made the decision today to sacrifice the grid position to be better prepared for the race. This means losing a few places on the grid, but giving Paul and Adrian three sets of new tires for the race. It will be tough to score points starting from 16th and 17th place, but the races this season have shown us that working on strategy will give us an advantage.
We also reverted to our previous aero specification because we couldn’t find the right compromise we hoped for to succeed with the new parts. That’s why we preferred to go with a known base. We will take another look at our new concept and try to develop it for Monaco, but I suppose it will be an introductory phase for the next two or three races.
