Force India Q & A with Andy Stevenson

Q&A with Andy Stevenson

Andy Stevenson: “It’s been a very, very productive weekend so far”

Adrian Sutil and Paul Di Resta will start the Turkish GP from 12th and 13th on the grid, and are looking forward to a strong race. We asked Sporting Director, Andy Stevenson, for his thoughts on the weekend so far.

Adrian Sutil, Force India F1 Team and Michael Schumacher, Mercedes GP F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

Q: You came close to getting a car into Q3, so was it disappointing to miss out?

“It was always going to be very tricky here for us to make Q3, but the way the weekend has gone for us so far, I’m relatively pleased. Friday worked very well for us. We had a programme of items that we wanted to test, and it went extremely well, and the reliability was good. We worked through the programme, and even with the wet track in the morning, we still managed to achieve everything we were looking for. We got some very positive results which will help us develop the car more. It’s been a very, very productive weekend so far.”

Q: How did things go today?

Paul di Resta, Force India F1 Team

Photo by: xpb.cc

“FP3 went to plan. In qualifying obviously our aim is always to get into Q3, but we have to be honest with ourselves at the moment, we don’t have a car with the raw speed to get us into Q3 – but we are there if anybody else makes a mistake. It’s not where we want to be for the whole year, which is why we put a lot of emphasis on our Friday programmes, and why we were so pleased with what happened.”

Q: How different is the car for this race?

“We’re permanently evolving our philosophy. We changed the way that we designed the car for this year, and we came up with that decision quite late. But I think what we’re going to see soon is the fruits of that. We had to get through these initial races, and we’ve done very well. We put plans in place months and months in advance, and you do get small setbacks and you do find areas where you gain time. So things are always changing.”

Q: And there’s a lot more to come in the upcoming races?

“You always as a race team try to get a big jump in performance on the car for the start of the European season, because logistically that works. With this race being in Turkey it’s probably made it a little bit more difficult, because it’s not as easy to get the components to the track at the last minute. I think we’re happy with the direction we’re going in, the performance of the car, the performance of the drivers.”

Q: There was a lot of talk about tyre wear before we came here. How will that impact strategy on Sunday?

“We haven’t got any major problems. Everybody’s learning how we manage the strategies in the race, because it’s different to what we’re used to. I think that’s great for the sport. It’s good to have you get your thinking cap on and change the whole way you run qualifying and the race. I think it’s exciting with the DRS and the KERS. The strategies that people run are very different compared with what we’re used to, so it makes for a good show.”

Source: Force India