14 Oct 2012

In Korea Nico Hülkenberg maintained Sahara Force India’s recent qualifying form by getting into Q3 and earning eighth place, beating the Mercedes pair of Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher to do so. We asked him for his thoughts on the session and on the race to come.

Eighth place is a good outcome. Are you happy with that?
“It was a good session, quite tricky and tough, to be honest. There was a point in Q1 and Q2 where I thought we were not going to make it. It was very, very tight with Jenson dropping out in Q2 by two-hundredths or something. It was a super job by the team, and my laps were all pretty good in qualifying, so I’m happy.”

And you had a set of new supersofts for Q3?
“Yeah, we used it, we said we might have a chance here with Mercedes and it turned out well. We needed a good lap and after the first sector it was not looking so good, they were quite a bit quicker. But then we recovered the rest of the lap. It’s a good starting point for tomorrow.”

For the last ten races at least one of you has been in Q3, at many different tracks. How encouraging is that?
“Very, we have a good basis, but all the cars around us are competitive as well, and it’s very marginal and very close. It’s going to be a close and challenging race, for sure.”

As for the race, you are obviously committed to the supersoft for the start, but there could be people from 11^th on backwards who can start on the soft. How did you see it?
“It’s pretty equal between the tyres to be honest, they are both performing in terms of lap time at a similar level. In terms of degradation it wasn’t too high on Friday, so it will be interesting to see what happens in the race. I’m not quite sure, but our long runs were quite OK, so I’m optimistic going into the race.”

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