Saturday: Hülkenberg puts Force India in Q3
For his return to F1, Nico Hülkenberg had a successful qualifying session in Melbourne. The German driver will start from 9th place on the starting grid tomorrow. His teammate, Paul di Resta, will only start 15th after experiencing tire performance issues. The Indian team's goal will be to score points in tomorrow's race.
Nico Hülkenberg – 14th and 9th
I’m very happy with today’s result because I wasn’t sure we could make it to Q3. We did a good job after free practice 3 to improve the settings, and I feel much more comfortable with the car now. Obviously, there are some uncertainties for the race because we didn’t do a lot of laps with a heavy fuel load due to yesterday’s rain, but all teams are in the same situation. It’s the same with the tires because we’re still in the learning phase, and we’ll discover their longevity tomorrow. It will be an exciting race and I can’t wait for it.
Paul Di Resta – 17th and 15th
This has been a rather difficult session and I never managed to do everything correctly. I think my out lap was compromised by traffic, and as a result, I couldn’t get the tires to work properly, which affected my fast lap. So there’s a lot of work to do for tomorrow and I need to work hard tonight to see if there’s something that can be done to improve things. Throughout the winter, our pace on long stints seemed good, so hopefully I can make up ground in the race and fight to score some points.
Robert Fernley – Deputy Team Principal
I think we can be quite satisfied with today’s performance. Nico did an amazing job all weekend and managed to get the most out of the car in Q2 and Q3. There are fast cars behind him, but I’m confident we’ll have good pace and stay in the race for points. As for Paul, he’s in the midfield, and we’ll have to fight hard to move up in the race. He didn’t have his best stint in Q2 due to tire issues, which compromised his only timed lap at the end of the session. We know he’s a fighter and hope he can make up ground in the race.
