07 Sep 2012

Sahara Force India had a promising start to the Italian Grand Prix weekend as Paul Di Resta and Nico Hülkenberg took seventh and eighth places in FP2, separated by just 0.001s! We asked both drivers for their thoughts on progress so far.

Paul, both cars in the top ten today – a pretty solid start?
PDR: “I think it was. Right from the off we seemed to get into the groove quite quickly. Each run we improved slightly and gathered what we needed to. I think the preparation in the simulator obviously helps. I missed FP1 so there are certainly more things that I can analyse and try and improve for tomorrow.”

Nico, are you pleased with the way things went today?
NH: “It’s only a Friday, and the first Friday for a long time that we’ve had normal circumstances. We’ve gone through all the work we wanted to do, so that’s positive. There is still some work to do in terms of set-up, but it didn’t look too bad.”

How difficult is it to get the ideal set-up here?
PDR: “It depends on how much you can arrive here with a baseline set-up that’s comfortable and consistent, and that you can work with. Up until now that’s something we’ve achieved. I hope that’s not going to change tomorrow. I think there are areas where we can go forward a bit.”

Did you learn much about the tyres today? As you said there have not been many dry Fridays lately.
NH: “It was quite interesting. The medium seemed to be good tyre today. I was struggling a little bit more on the hard, but both were working pretty well to be honest.”

Any thoughts on one stop or two stops?
PDR: “I’m not talking about strategy! It’s obviously quite a big thing here and given that the weather is going to be consistent, everybody will have their approach, and we’re working towards what we need to do.”

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