07 Sep 2012

Sahara Force India enjoyed a productive start to its preparations for this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix.

Nico Hülkenberg  (VJM05/03)
FP1:     P12      1:26.518            21 laps
FP2:     P8        1:25.547            36 laps

Nico: “It was nice to have a dry and straightforward Friday for a change so that we could get through our programme and complete some long runs. Overall we look in reasonable shape, although I’m not totally happy with the set-up yet. We learned a lot about the tyres and both the hard and medium are working well here. The other big decision to make tonight is what downforce levels we will use over the weekend.”

Paul Di Resta   (VJM05/02)
FP1:     Did not take part
FP2:     P7        1:25.546            40 laps

Paul: “A pretty standard afternoon session for me and I seemed to get in the groove quite quickly. The preparation we had done in the simulator was useful and the baseline set-up was not very far away from where we needed to be. We improved the car with each run so there’s plenty of data to go through tonight to improve our performance before qualifying.” 

Jules Bianchi (VJM05/02)
FP1:     P16      1:27.192            22 laps
FP2:     Did not take part

Jules: “I’m very happy with how things went today. I felt very comfortable in the car and had the confidence to really push and make the most of the programme. There was a lot of traffic on my first run, but the other two runs were better and I was able to complete some good timed laps. The team asked me to run some different aero levels to get a feel for the car and we made some small improvements between the runs. So I feel very positive and I want to thank the team once again for the chance to drive the car.”

Jakob Andreasen, Chief Engineer: “A productive day of practice, which has given us all the data we need heading into the weekend. There are still some balance improvements to be made, but the set-up programme ran smoothly and there were no issues with the cars. We ran Jules this morning and he did an excellent job evaluating the downforce levels and working on the baseline set-up. In the afternoon our focus moved towards longer runs to give us the tyre data and to help determine our approach for the rest of the weekend. We will go through the data tonight and then focus on qualifying performance tomorrow morning.”

 

 

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