21 Sep 2012

Sahara Force India made a strong start to the Singapore weekend as Paul Di Resta and Nico Hülkenberg finished FP2 in sixth and seventh places, showing that the Monza qualifying pace can be maintained at other tracks. After the session Nico talked about today’s performance.

You must be reasonably happy with today, with both of you up there?
“It wasn’t a bad day, although again a bit compromised for everybody with the rain. After that I think we ran through the programme quite nicely. Our one lap competitiveness looked quite strong, although in previous events we looked quite strong on Friday and dropped a little bit on Saturday and Sunday. So now we have to make sure to be as competitive tomorrow and Sunday as we were today. That is the task.”

The team has been quick at many different types of tracks recently. Is that encouraging?
“We were quick in Monza qualifying for sure, but in the race it was not quite as expected, and as we would have liked. But I think this track comes towards our car a little bit, a lot of low speed corners, and that suits us I think. And you can see that in today’s result. But today is not important, it’s about tomorrow and Sunday.”

This is a race where there’s always a lot of action at the front with safety cars and so on. If the two of you can qualify well do you think you will be right there to take advantage?
“It always depends. You still need a strong start, a good first lap, and if you can hang onto your position, that is good. But here it’s a race that usually hits the two-hour mark. It’s still a long way go, but it’s a good thing if you are in that kind of position. It makes things easier, strategy and everything.”

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