07 Jul 2012

Sahara Force India made the most of a wet and delayed qualifying session as Nico Hülkenberg qualified in ninth and Paul Di Resta in 11th for tomorrow’s British Grand Prix. Due to changing a gearbox, Nico will take a five-place grid drop. 

P9*       Nico Hülkenberg (VJM05/03)
(*starting position still to be confirmed)

Q1:       1:46.344
Q2:       1:55.556
Q3:       1:54.382

Nico: “It was a very long session with the delay, but I think I made the most of the conditions in Q1 and Q2. It was definitely the right call to stop the session when the rain got really heavy because there was too much standing water on the circuit and the car was beginning to aquaplane. But I don’t understand where the pace went in Q3 when I was on the intermediates because the car felt more tricky to drive and the laptime didn’t come so easy. I was actually hoping for a better position in Q3 than P9, especially with the five-place penalty I have for tomorrow.” 

P11*     Paul Di Resta (VJM05/02)
(*starting position still to be confirmed)
Q1:       1:47.582
Q2:       1:57.009

Paul: “We actually took a bit of gamble on the qualifying session being dry and that’s the direction we took with the set-up, but it made driving very difficult in today’s wet conditions. I think some other cars went more aggressive with a full wet set-up so hopefully my gamble will come back to me tomorrow in the race. Of course I would like to be starting further towards the front, but we are going into the race with a lot of unknowns in terms of set-up data and tyre performance. Anything is possible in the race and we won’t give up.” 

Dr Vijay Mallya, Team Principal & Managing Director
“Another very wet day at our local race and I want to pay tribute to the fans who put up with yet more rain showers and delayed track action. Our car looked competitive today, but in such tricky conditions qualifying is always a lottery and so we can’t be too disappointed to have just one car in Q3. Paul just missed the cut, but we have a good race car and we know he will fight hard tomorrow. In Q3 Nico didn’t manage to maximise his final quick lap and he also has to drop five places on the grid due to the gearbox change. I’m looking forward to the race and whatever the weather I’m confident we can be up there fighting for points and challenging the teams ahead of us.”

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